St. Josef (Aachen)
St. Josef in Aachen is a former Catholic parish church, which today is used as a columbarium for urn burials under the name "Grabeskirche" , also because the neighboring Aachen Ostfriedhof has reached the limits of its capacity.
history
The neo-Gothic St. Joseph Church in Aachen's east quarter was built in 1893 and 1894 according to plans by Gerhard Franz Langenberg . It was conceived as a hall church in brick construction with a transept and an apse , which is formed from five sides of an octagon. The architect Max Keuchen took over the construction management and the company Daniels carried out the construction. A large, old grave cross with the inscription: "LAPIS ANGULARIS ECCLESIAE PAROCHIALIS SANCTI JOSEPH" was embedded in the foundation of the choir wall. The striking three-storey square substructure of the tower rises above the main entrance, on which the octagonal bell storey, which makes up more than a third of the total tower, was built. In the area of the interior, the Sacred Heart Altar and a crucifixion group with an altar shrine were made according to plans by the carver Ferdinand Langenberg , the other altars, the communion bench, the pulpit and the confessionals were made according to designs by the Aachen cathedral builder Joseph Buchkremer . On November 8, 1898, the church was finally consecrated by Auxiliary Bishop Hermann Joseph Schmitz .
After severe damage in the Second World War , a simplified reconstruction was carried out under the direction of master builder Felix Kreusch , renouncing the original high spire. The interior was designed much more simply, the remaining parts of the original furnishings, including the altars and the pulpit, were almost completely removed in the 1960s. In place of the originally rich, partly figurative painting, there was a color setting accentuated by the brick-red square vaulted sail, which otherwise consists of restrained gray and white tones. The windows designed by Ludwig Schaffrath in the 1970s are formative for today's spatial impression , although the choir windows were still designed by Kreusch.
Due to the initially strong population growth in the community, St. Corpus Christi was built as the second parish church for the eastern quarter in 1930 . After the share of the Catholic population in this quarter fell sharply towards the end of the 20th century, the parishes of St. Joseph and St. Corpus Christi were merged in May 2005. After that, the Church of St. Joseph received a new purpose, although a Eucharistic celebration was still to take place once a week.
As a further use of the building, the interior was redesigned into a Church of the Holy Sepulcher by the Aachen architect Ulrich Hahn in 2006. The stalls were reduced and repositioned in the former sanctuary. A newly installed watercourse flows from a spring in the former entrance area to the old baptismal font. A stylized ship was hung above the aisle, symbolizing the journey across the river of death to life with God . The windows were completely redesigned by Ludwig Schaffrath. The naves and the arcades of the entrance area were equipped with numerous steles for the urns , the seats of which can be purchased for twenty years. A number of 310 steles for 1860 urns is targeted.
Central nave
"Ship of Life"
organ
Baptismal font
Lady Chapel
The Marienkapelle, also accessible from the outside, is located on the south side of the church. According to the parish chronicle of 1964, the trigger was the wish of a foreign convert to build a Chapel of Our Lady out of gratitude. The space of the former sacristy could be used for this, after a new sacristy had been built on the north side of the church. The Lady Chapel was inaugurated on May 1, 1965 by Rev Lambert Drink. The statue of the Virgin in it comes from the St. Mary's altar in St. After the urban redevelopment of the Adalbertsteinweg and the resulting redesign of the church square from 1975, the Marienkapelle was turned inside by 180 ° and a porch was added as an entrance area.
triptych
Between 2004 and 2008, the Aachen artist Rita Lausberg (* 1965) made a monumental triptych that is hung to the right of the side entrance. Each part of the picture measures a total of 220 cm × 280 cm and consists of 16 individual panels of 55 cm × 70 cm each, painted in oil on canvas. The work is called: "The Heavenly Jerusalem - and how to get there".
The left part of the picture shows the current refugee problem and shows penned refugees on an overcrowded boat. A locked wall looms in the background, which is only opened through a narrow gap. In the foreground on the left an oversized sleeping newborn is shown, but it can also be a fetus in the womb.
The right part of the picture reflects a situation in a hospital room with intensive care equipment that merges into an elongated waiting room. Street children , homeless people and other people sit tightly packed there .
The middle part is an adaptation of the Lord's Supper with well-known people of modern times. Sitting on the right side of the table are Bishop Klaus Hemmerle , Archbishop Oscar Romero , Mother Teresa , Sister Etienne de Latran, Pope Johannes XXIII. , Martin Luther King , an unknown woman, the women's rights activist Edith Stein and a large number of unspecified and indefinable people. Across from them, from front to back, an unknown man and an unknown woman can be seen, behind them the theologian Dorothee Sölle , the prior Roger Schutz , the doctor Ruth Pfau and the theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer , followed by other unknown people.
Urn graves (selection)
- Ludwig Schaffrath , sculptor, painter and glass designer
- Benno Werth , sculptor, designer and painter
- Heinrich Winter , mathematician and university professor
literature
- Ulrich Schäfer: St. Joseph's Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Aachen (Church Guide), DKV Art Guide No. 644, Deutscher Kunstverlag Munich Berlin, 2007.
- August Brecher: 100 years of divine service in St. Josef, Aachen: 1894–1994; the path of a parish , Einhard-Verlag Aachen, 1994.
Web links
- Church of the Holy Sepulcher Aachen
- Parish of St. Joseph and Corpus Christi
- Slideshow about the Holy Sepulcher
- Pictures of the church windows on the website of the Research Center for 20th Century Glass Painting e. V.
Individual evidence
- ^ Felix Kreusch's work on St. Josef, Aachen
- ↑ Peter Hermanns: 50 Years of the Marienkapelle (PDF) , Parish Letter St. Joseph and Corpus Christi, May 2015, p. 8
Coordinates: 50 ° 46 ′ 28.7 " N , 6 ° 6 ′ 29.5" E