St. Joseph (Herne)

St. Joseph, Herne
St. Joseph
Data
place	Herne , North Rhine-Westphalia
architect	Gerold Ringelhan, Wenden
Construction year	1984-1985
Coordinates	51 ° 33 '3.4 "  N , 7 ° 13' 40.1"  E Coordinates: 51 ° 33 '3.4 "  N , 7 ° 13' 40.1"  E
particularities
second church at this point

The St. Josef Church is a Catholic parish church in Herne. It is the second church at this point and is located on Roonstrasse in Herne-Horsthausen. Today it is the parish church of the St. Dionysius parish of the Emschertal dean's office in the Archdiocese of Paderborn .

Building history

The sparsely populated area in Horsthausen, like the other areas of the Ruhr area, experienced rapid population growth in the last third of the 19th century due to the northward movement of mining. As a result, the mother churches were forced to create parish vicarages in order to enable people to actively participate in worship and parish life. The Lambertuskirche in Castrop parish in 1900 from the St. Joseph parish. As early as 1896 she bought a piece of land on the south side of Roonstrasse from farmer Schulte am Esch .

Old church

With the support of the Friedrich der Große colliery , a neo-Gothic church was built between the northern Roonstrasse (main entrance) and the southern Luisenstrasse (choir). Caused by mountain damage, the nave leaned by more than a meter on the north side and the spire was 2.15 m out of perpendicular. After weighing the repair costs against the costs of a new building, the municipality decided to demolish it, especially since expensive repair work that resulted from the air raid on November 11, 1944 would have had to be financed. The leaning tower of Horsthausen was blown up on August 15, 1983.

View from Luisenstrasse

New Church

In contrast to its predecessor, the new church structure (with the exception of the tower) does not dominate the cityscape. Consciously turning away from the historicizing architecture of the old St. Joseph Church with its neo-Gothic repertoire of forms, the church, consecrated in 1984, embodies the liturgical and functional change in sacred buildings in the modern architectural language of the post-war period. A church was built with an adjoining community center, which can be opened to the church service room via a sliding door and was thus integrated into the church. Both buildings are made of the same building materials in a low construction and adapt to the surrounding living environment. Only the bell tower (26.70 m high), which looks a bit bulky due to its copper cladding, falls out of the ordinary. The architect of the building was Gerold Ringelhan in Wenden.

Furnishing

Inside the church is kept dark due to the few windows and the wooden paneled ceiling. The main idea of ​​the interior is: The people of God on the way . The structure and its ceiling design therefore refer to a tent. The two-tiered altar island, which is illuminated by two asymmetrically arranged vertical ribbon windows, catches the eye with clever lighting. The main path, which forms the diagonal of the square church floor plan (20.40 m), leads directly to the altar and the light. The glass windows were created by Helmut Lang from Cologne. The sculptor Ulrich Langohr in Wenden created a. a. the four side reliefs of the altar with scenes from the Old Testament.

organ

In the St. Josephskirche there is a classicist slider chest organ with originally nine registers from the year 1810. The organ front with pipe cornice is made of oak and measures 10 m. Height, 4 m. Width and 2.4 m. Depth. The gilded profiles, veils and consoles form the three-towered prospectus with the early classicist decorative carving. The organ was built in Herford by the organ builder Meyer. In 1903 it was moved to the Börniger Notkirche, and after 1904 to the new St. Peter and Paul Church there . It was expanded to 17 registers. In 1960 it was handed over to the old Horsthauser church, in order to have it restored in 1983 for the new church at the Sauer company in Höxter and expanded to 21 registers. It has been in use again since 1987, with further additions to the musical mechanism and the organ case. It is the oldest surviving and at the same time most valuable organ in Herne. In 2016 the organ was restored again.

Web links

Commons : St. Joseph  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Official community website
• Research Center for 20th Century Glass Painting Foundation with pictures of the church

Individual evidence

1. ↑ [1] 100 objects Herne, volume 6