St. John the Baptist (Cologne)
St. John the Baptist is the Catholic Church of the Cologne University Hospital in the Lindenthal district . It was built from 1962 to 1965 according to the plans of the architect Gottfried Böhm with the assistance of Kurt Günssler and has been a listed building since 2001.
Building history
Originally, an institution church with a rectory was to be built. The planning contract for this was awarded to Gottfried Böhm in 1958 after a competition limited to six architects. One requirement was that the church should be connected to the existing underground corridor system that connects the individual clinics. Due to a change of plan, instead of the rectory, a monastery building for about 80 religious sisters was provided on the side, which later serves as a temporary residence and is now the seat of the dean's office of the medical faculty and the ethics research center.
Construction began in July 1962, the topping-out ceremony was celebrated on December 12, 1963, and the keystone was installed in July 1965. In September 1965 the church was consecrated to John the Baptist . This patronage of the hospital church goes back to the tradition of the medieval St. Johann Baptist Hospital on Breite Straße .
In 1967 the building was awarded the Cologne Architecture Prize and in 2001 was included in the list of monuments of the city of Cologne under the number 8541.
More recently, the typical damage to the reinforced concrete architecture has become evident: chipped concrete and corrosion of the reinforcing bars underneath. In addition, there were damp walls due to a partially leaking roof. Concrete renovation was carried out in 2006/2007. After a special cleaning of the surfaces, the monument conservation requirements were met with great manual effort by reproducing the grain size of the original exposed concrete as precisely as possible during the repair. In the end, the patches should come as close as possible to the original poured concrete. Finally, a bactericidal , fungicidal and algicidal active ingredient solution was applied for protection.
Building description
The church is a cuboid hall with clear outlines, which is located in the middle of the numerous laboratory and clinic buildings of Cologne University . A very slim bell stele ( campanile ) is provided, which is only connected to the main house through the small vestibule. The roofscape, which is barely recognizable from a street perspective, is strong, but evenly folded and ends on the long sides in eight flat zigzag gables. These are contoured in a simple form by strong protruding gargoyles .
The exposed concrete walls are structured by a wide ribbon of windows on a low plinth, which - interrupted only by narrow, slightly protruding supports - outside and inside with wrought-iron sculptures "like iron thorn branches". Above that, the high wall is completely closed up to the edge of the roof.
Inside, the shapes of the roof can be found in a white, folded ceiling that is not interrupted by any supports. The white color, which can be understood as an expression of the beyond, also extends over the walls above the ribbon of windows. The elements below the ribbon of windows, on the parapet, the floor and the few built-in fixtures placed freely in the room are made of exposed concrete - a symbol of the earthly. These are two cylindrical confessionals on the right side of the hall and a cuboid organ gallery on the left, under which there is space for a Lady Chapel with Pietà and the sacristy . From here, up to the present day, people unable to walk can be transported between the clinic and the church in the hospital lifts. The church is designed for 350 believers plus about 30 lying sick.
The choir room accommodates the altar wall - also exposed - on a three-step pedestal, which serves as a right-angled canopy for the cross. To the right of the altar is the place for the tabernacle , which is surrounded by a fountain-like concrete ring open on one side.
Furnishing
The ribbon of windows, designed by Gottfried Böhm himself and executed in bold colors, also serves as the church's way of the cross. Plastic metalwork and abstract glass painting combine to create the motifs; the individual stations are marked by seven forged crowns of thorns and small wooden crosses. The glass painting was done by Peter Winnen, the design of the forge sculptures by Hans Lückerath.
A cross is modeled in the concrete of the free-standing altar wall, on which a 103 cm high crucifix from around 1410 is attached, which was hung in the hospital nurses' house before the Second World War . There is also a niche for the anointing oil and an icon that shows John at the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan . The Pietà in the Lady Chapel dates from the 19th century.
The tabernacle in the choir area to the right of the altar was only built into the surrounding structure in 1968, as the square was previously intended as a baptism site. It was designed by Eva Burgeff-Kerkoff . The ambo to the left of the altar was designed by Gottfried Böhm himself, as was the baptismal font. The bronze baptismal font was made in the Cologne factory schools (1965).
A tower cock by Helmut Lang is attached to the bell stele on the outside.
In 2007 a small medicinal herb garden was laid out north of the church, in which a broken pillar is supposed to commemorate those people who gave their bodies to medical research after their death.
Position in the work of Gottfried Böhm
The author Helmut Fußbroich points out that the clinic church occupies a certain middle position in Gottfried Böhm's work - in the basic forms it is geometrical as in the early work, but the ceilings are already strongly plastic as in the later main works of the architect. However, these are still separate and not as space-defining as, for example, at the next Böhm church in Cologne, St. Gertrud , where the plastic ceiling forms a unit with the room. The art historian Günther Binding sees the church clearly in the series of other works by Böhm, both through the space-defining dominance of the concrete surfaces and through the attempt to break up the rigor of the clear geometry through asymmetrical fixtures.
literature
- Catholic pastoral care of the University Hospital Cologne (ed.): St. John the Baptist . (Church leader). Cologne 2008.
Web links
- Research Center for Glass Painting of the 20th Century eV , precise documentation of the windows (with images)
- “Don't forget the victims” - memorial service of the Working Group of Christian Churches (ACK) at the end of the war 75 years ago with many details of the interior
Individual evidence
- ^ A b c Günther Binding: The buildings of the University of Cologne [600 years of Cologne University; 1388-1988] . Greven, Cologne 1988.
- ↑ a b c d e f g Helmut Johannes Fußbroich: A church with underground access . In: Axel Freimuth, Michael Stückradt (Ed.): Mituns magazine for the employees of the University of Cologne . Cologne December 2016, ISSN 1614-564 (?!?!) , P. 18–19 ( uni-koeln.de [PDF]).
- ↑ a b Monika Schmelzer: Saint John the Baptist . 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. 80 .
- ↑ Facsimile of the document that was placed in the keystone . In: Catholic pastoral care of the University Clinic Cologne (ed.): St. John the Baptist . Cologne 2008, p. 3 .
- ↑ Herbert Rode: A historical consideration . In: Catholic pastoral care of the University Clinic Cologne (ed.): St. John the Baptist . Cologne 2008, p. 12 .
- ↑ a b Helmut Fußbroich, Dierk Holthausen: Architectural Guide Cologne: Sacred Buildings after 1900 . 1st edition. Bachem, Cologne 2005, ISBN 3-7616-1683-X , p. 200-201 .
- ↑ a b c Catholic pastoral care of the University Clinic Cologne (ed.): St. John the Baptist . Cologne 2008, p. 2-15 .
- ↑ a b Georg Gottfried Dehio, Claudia Euskirchen, Ernst Gall, Olaf Gisbertz: Catholic Hospital Church St. Johann Baptist . In: Rhineland (= Dehio - Handbook of German Art Monuments . North Rhine-Westphalia I - Rhineland). Revised edition. German Kunstverlag, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-422-03093-X , p. 794 .
Coordinates: 50 ° 55 ′ 27.2 " N , 6 ° 55 ′ 15.7" E