St. Hildegard in the Au

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Exterior view with tower

St. Hildegard in der Au is a Catholic parish church in the Cologne district of Nippes , which was built in 1960/1961 according to plans by architect Stefan Leuer and consecrated on the first Sunday of Advent in 1961 . The church is under the patronage of Saint Hildegard von Bingen . The house of God is to be closed in September 2020.

Prehistory and construction

The founding of the parish of St. Hildegard in 1960 went hand in hand with plans to build a church. Until the planning permission was granted at the end of 1959, the mother parish of St. Bonifatius in Nippes assumed responsibility for the construction work itself in March 1960. The foundation stone was laid on May 29, 1960 and at the end of the year, on the 20th December, the topping-out ceremony was celebrated and shortly afterwards moved into the rectory.

Just a few weeks later, the side chapel of the church was used for weekday services. The youth home and church tower - one third of which was financed by the congregation itself - as well as the further expansion of the church itself took up almost the whole of 1961, until the inauguration could take place on December 3, 1961. In June 2020 it became known that the church would be closed in September of that year and that social housing would be built in its place.

Building description

window

The church building is on an almost square floor plan with two parabolic rounded corners at a quiet intersection. The square entrance portal is at the apex of one of the two parabolas. A narrow tower on a circular base is completely separate as a campanile .

Hildegard von Bingen sculpture above the entrance portal

The facade is “perforated” with small square windows - beginning with a colored glazed window at the apex, then two, three and four on top of each other until the almost 150 openings at the side corners almost reach down to the community. The resulting curve corresponds to the parabolic curves of the walls. She invites the congregation "in a movement from below to above [...] to open up to God and at the same time [reminds] in the movement from above to below [...] that God comes down to us". The bell tower is also structured at the top with corresponding wall openings.

Outside, above the entrance portal, there is a small niche in which a sculpture of the church patron Hildegard von Bingen sits.

Inside, the entrance area is divided into a vestibule and baptistery under an ellipsoidal cantilevered gallery , with the baptismal font in the center of the entrance "in the way", but separated by glass panes so that two entrances to the right and left lead into the church.

The dominant side, however, is the opposite side of the altar, towards which the view is directed - the rows of pews fan out around the raised altar island, which, in its concave curve, mirrors that of the organ loft.

To the side of the altar on the left, a passage leads through a chapel to other parish buildings, this passage serves as a side chapel.

Furnishing

The church is equipped very sparingly and does not contain any valuable art objects, which at the beginning had financial reasons. The central support of the central altar table by Klaus Balke shows a stone thorn bush with a ram lamb , which emphasizes the function of the altar as a sacrificial table with reference to the Old Testament sacrifice of Isaac ( Gen 22.13  EU ). The artist also designed the tabernacle, the altar cross and the candlestick, all pieces are from 1962. The tabernacle is modeled on a Jewish Torah cabinet and also shows an Old Testament scene with the burning bush .

In 1964, Balke added the Stations of the Cross, which stretch along the left side of the wall into the chapel. Behind the altar tapestries adorn the wall, which illustrate a motto of Hildegard von Bingen, Scivias (“Know the ways”).

The windows of the altar wall in the colors white, gold and red as well as those of the rear wall in white, blue and green come from Hubert Schaffmeister .

Jochem Pechau created the Hildegard figure in the portal niche and the baptismal font .

The two-manual organ from Gebr. Späth was purchased in 1968 and has 14 stops.

The three-part ringing of the bell foundry Petit & Gebr. Edelbrock was cast in two sections. In 1962 they were satisfied with the single Helmut Herbert bell, which was supplemented in 1972 by the Marien and Hildegard bells. The strikes are a 1 -h 1 -d 2.

Web links

Commons : St. Hildegard in der Au (Cologne-Nippes)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Kerstin Meier: St. Hildegard in the Au Nippesser Church has to close - social housing planned. In: ksta.de. Retrieved June 20, 2020 .
  2. ↑ a b Catholic parish office of St. Hildegard in Cologne Nippes (Ed.): St. Hildegard Cologne-Nippes [St. Hildegard in the Au zu Köln-Nippes] . Cologne 1962, p. 4-18 .
  3. ↑ a b c d Wilfried Koch: St. Hildegard. In: sankt-engelbert-und-sankt-bonifatius.de. Retrieved April 10, 2020 .
  4. ^ St. Engelbert and St. Bonifatius | St. Hildegard. Retrieved April 10, 2020 .
  5. ↑ a b c Helmut Fußbroich, Dierk Holthausen: Architectural Guide Cologne: Sacred Buildings after 1900 . 1st edition. Bachem, Cologne 2005, ISBN 3-7616-1683-X , p. 174-175 .
  6. ↑ Monika Schmelzer: Sankt Hildegard in der Au . In: Manfred Becker-Huberti, Günter A. Menne (Ed.): Churches in Cologne. The churches of the Catholic and Protestant communities in Cologne. Bachem, Cologne 2004, ISBN 3-7616-1731-3 , p. 76 .
  7. ^ Gerhard Hoffs: Bells of Catholic churches in Cologne . Cologne 1985, p. 598 ( archive.org [PDF]).

Coordinates: 50 ° 57 '38.9 "  N , 6 ° 57' 53.3"  E