St. Maria (Biel)
The Church of St. Maria is the oldest of the three Roman Catholic parish churches in Biel and is located in the Jura suburb . On the outside, the church takes on neo-Gothic forms, inside it is one of the few Swiss church buildings in the style of Expressionism . The church building consists of an upper church, which was built by architect Adolf Gaudy 1927-1929, and a crypt , which is the predecessor of the church, which was built in 1867-1870 by architect Wilhelm Keller . The Marienkirche is a cultural asset of national importance with KGS No.:773
history
founding
The settlement of the watch industry after 1842 and the railway connection of the city in 1857 meant that many workers moved to Biel and the surrounding area, including Catholics from the northern part of the Jura canton (now the canton of Jura ) as well as from France and southern Germany. To attend a Catholic service, the faithful had to travel to Grenchen or Le Landeron . A group of Biel Catholics first tried to get permission to share the town church , but this was not allowed. On Christmas Day 1858, Chancellor Duret celebrated the first mass since the Reformation in Biel in an apartment in Kanalgasse 28 . After the Catholic community had initially been built up on the basis of private law , the Biel parish was constituted in 1866 with state recognition. Although no church taxes could be collected and money was tight, the construction of a first church was soon planned.
Although the Jura suburbs seemed to some Catholics to be too remote, the construction of the church was tackled on a vineyard acquired there in 1860. In 1867 the site was terraced , in April 1869 the foundation stone for the church was laid and it was then built by the Lucerne architect Wilhelm Keller. On September 11, 1870, the church was consecrated in honor of St. Mary Immaculate . The construction of the church was largely financed by the diocese of Basel , but also through collecting campaigns by the faithful and donations.
Kulturkampf
The infallibility dogma of the First Vatican Council of 1870 triggered a long-term dispute among the Biel Catholics, which was exacerbated by the Kulturkampf . In 1873 the liberal Catholics of Biel broke away from pastor Jeker, who was loyal to Rome, who was removed from office by the Bern government together with 68 other pastors loyal to Rome on charges of rebellion against the state authorities. Pastor Jeker's father bought the house next to the church in 1870; Pastor Jeker welcomed believers who were loyal to Rome to worship in this house, including many Catholics with foreign roots. The Old Catholic believers, on the other hand, elected a new church council on November 2, 1873 and henceforth celebrated their services separately from the believers loyal to Rome. Pastor Jeker was banished from Biel for two years in 1874, which is why he went to Le Landeron and from there maintained contact with the faithful who were loyal to Rome. Since the Federal Constitution forbade the expulsion of Swiss people, Pastor Jeker was able to return to Biel and in 1876 build an emergency church on the area of his house , in which he henceforth celebrated services with the Catholics loyal to Rome, while the liberal Catholics of Biel, who joined the Christian Catholic Church in 1875 followed, held services in the Marienkirche next to it. As part of the defusing of the Kulturkampf, the Roman Catholic priests were granted amnesty in 1878 , and in 1893 the canton of Bern recognized both the Christian Catholic and Roman Catholic churches as regional churches . The Roman Catholic parish of Biel was officially recognized by the Grand Council of the Canton of Bern on February 22, 1898. The community of Biel, which had taken over the church in the meantime, proposed equal use of the Marienkirche, but this was rejected by both Catholic communities. In 1903 the community ceded St. Mary's Church to the Roman Catholic parish, which in return had to buy out the Christian Catholic parish so that they could start building their Epiphany church .
Stained glass window Judith and Holofernes
Adam and Eve, stained glass crypt
Stained glass window burning bush
Construction and remodeling of today's church
As a result of its poor state of construction, the old St. Mary's Church was not expanded as initially planned, but converted into the crypt of its successor church. The new church, which was built on top of the old church for cost reasons, should not appear disproportionate despite its size with 1000 seats, which is why it was divided into several structures by the architect Adolf Gaudy and does not tower over the old church from the street towards the slope . Construction began in 1926 and the old church was partially demolished in 1927. The newly built, second Marienkirche was solemnly consecrated on April 7, 1929 . In the following decades the church's equipment was gradually added. The interior was completed in 1932, and in 1947 the tower received its clock including a six-part bell. Gianpeter Gaudy, the son of the architect of the second St. Mary's Church, made the adaptation of the church space to the specifications of the Second Vatican Council. From 1978 to 1979 he led the construction of an altar area in the main nave of the upper church and the new arrangement of the benches.
Parish structure and daughter parishes
Like the city of Biel, the parish of St. Maria is bilingual and includes the Catholics in the Biel city area from the central square west towards Seevorstadt and east to the end of Solothurnstrasse. The parish also includes the Catholics of the parishes Vingelz , Tüscherz-Alfermée , Twann and Ligerz ; in a northerly direction Evilard , Magglingen and the municipalities of Orvin , Péry , La Heutte , Plagne , Vauffelin and Romont .
Two daughter parishes have emerged from the parish of St. Maria in the urban area of Biel: 1958 Brother Klaus , built by the Basel architect Hermann Baur , and 1968 Christ-König , built by the Aargau architect Walter Moser .
Building description
First church building (1870–1927)
The first St. Mary's Church, inaugurated in 1870, presented itself as a neo-Gothic building, the walls of which were rhythmic with stepped buttresses . The front tower did not appear well-proportioned compared to the size of the church , was built from wood for reasons of cost and soon proved to be unstable, which is why it had to be removed in 1913. The interior was based on the principle of a three-aisled basilica and had 500 seats. An organ gallery was built in above the portal , and a sacristy was located to the left and right of the choir . Due to the poor building structure and the growing parish, the church was partly demolished in 1927. Architect Adolf Gaudy left the lower areas of the old church walls and, after removing the roof, replaced the old pillars with new, stable concrete pillars that support the massive concrete slab that forms both the ceiling of the old church or crypt and the base of the upper church . Of the glass windows of the first church, two ornamental quatrains and a medallion of Maria Immaculata, designed by Karl Wehrli based on a design by Melchior Paul von Deschwanden, have been preserved on the top floor of the staircase to the organ gallery .
Today's church building (from 1929)
Church tower and exterior
From the outside, Adolf Gaudy's church takes on neo-Gothic forms. The massive bell tower and the monumental portal determine the front view of the church. The side view shows that the church has mighty transepts. In the crossing , a rising domed room , so that the church less than paths church because when Communiokirche is designed, which reveals the modernity of the church building. In the gable of the front facade there is a Madonna and Child, which was made in artificial stone by Payer and Wipplinger in 1927 and is 2 meters high. The bells were manufactured in 1947 in the H. Rüetschi foundry , Aarau, and sound in the tone sequence B ° des' es' f 'as' b'.
Interior and artistic equipment
Adolf Gaudy designed the upper church in the style of sacred expressionism. A metal construction, which is built into the roof structure of the church and carries both the load of the roof from above and the weight of the church ceiling from below, made it possible to design the vault of the upper church as a column-free space with the span in both the longitudinal and the transept of 30 meters each. The vault is geometrically constructed and its design is reminiscent of Gothic , Baroque and Oriental models. The Biel-based decoration painter Eduard Müller created the color concept, which ranges from brick red to orange, yellow to light gray, with the colors becoming lighter and lighter against the crown of the vault and the lantern . The choir, on the other hand, is in ultramarine blue, which enhances the glass windows, which receive little light due to the hillside location. The original furnishings of the upper church include the dove of the Holy Spirit in the lantern, which Luigi Pezzei made in 1928, the side altars by Joseph Conrad Martiner with Maria Immaculata (left) and St. Josef (right). On the back wall of the choir is a crucifixion group that was attached to the altar shrine before the redesign in the 1970s. Karl Hänny created the reliefs of the evangelist symbols on the choir screen. The fact that there are two anvils indicates that the parish is bilingual. As part of the adaptation to the specifications of the Second Vatican City, architect Gianpeter Gaudy created the podium in the crossing with the popular altar and the ambo; The furnishings are complemented by the tabernacle in the choir.
The stained glass in the crypt and in the upper church, including the mosaics, were made by the Mauméjean factory in Paris. In the upper church the life of Our Lady Mary and Jesus Christ are told. The 17 richly colored windows from 1930 are among the most extensive cycles of the Mauméjean manufacture. In contrast, the mosaics of the Way of the Cross from 1932 are monochrome.
organ
The upper church received its first organ from the Kuhn company in 1908. In 1947 this instrument was replaced by a second one from the same company with 24 registers. Today's organ dates from 1979, also by Orgelbau Kuhn.
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- Coupling : II / I, I / P, II / P
crypt
Because the crypt of the first Marienkirche from 1870 no longer had to have the full length of the original first church, Adolf Gaudy cut off the two back yokes of the old church to make it the entrance hall of the new church. The ceiling was limited to a height of 5 meters so that the whole building does not appear too high and the crypt appears as an intimate sacred space for smaller church services and personal prayer. The baptismal font of the crypt was set up in the local model church in the regional exhibition in Bern in 1914 , was then acquired by the parish of St. Maria Biel and fitted with its current lid in 1930. The stained glass windows in the crypt show scenes from the Old Testament and were made by the Mauméjean manufactory in Paris in 1930. The altarpiece dates from 1932 and depicts angels venerating the crucifix and the Trinity .
Organs of the crypt
The older of the two organs dates from 1770 and was built by Wendelin Looser . It was initially in the Evangelical Church of Wildhaus . In 1973 it was restored by Kuhn Orgelbau and after a few stops in 2012 it was installed in the crypt of the Church of St. Maria by Orgelbau Emmenegger, Nenzlingen. The younger of the two organs is a Metzler instrument and has 12 registers. It was built in 1953 for the church in Biel-Bözingen and, after a revision by Orgelbau Emmenegger, Nenzlingen, was moved to the crypt of St. Maria in 2016.
Disposition of the Looser organ from 1770:
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Disposition of the Metzler organ from 1953:
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Choir grille
Choir grille, detail
Painting, detail
literature
- Brigitte Kurmann-Schwarz (among others): St. Maria in Biel. Canton Bern. Society for Swiss Art History GSK, Bern 2016.
Web links
See also
List of Roman Catholic churches in the canton of Bern
Individual evidence
- ^ Kurmann-Schwarz: St. Maria in Biel. P. 2.
- ^ Kurmann-Schwarz: St. Maria in Biel. P. 4.
- ↑ Biel in the picture. ( Page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Section of the Roman Catholic Church of St. Mary. Retrieved August 19, 2017.
- ^ Kurmann-Schwarz: St. Maria in Biel. Pp. 6-9.
- ^ Kurmann-Schwarz: St. Maria in Biel. P. 10 and 14.
- ↑ a b Parish of St. Maria Biel. Section The church, a unique architectural piece. Retrieved August 19, 2017.
- ^ Parish of St. Maria Biel. Section territory of the parish. Retrieved August 19, 2017.
- ^ Kurmann-Schwarz: St. Maria in Biel. Pp. 5, 10, 16 and 38.
- ^ Kurmann-Schwarz: St. Maria in Biel. Pp. 14–16 and 26.
- ↑ Catholic Church of St. Maria, full bells on YouTube . Retrieved February 12, 2018.
- ^ Regional memory. Construction section of the Church of Santa Maria Immaculata in Biel, around 1927. Retrieved on August 19, 2017.
- ^ Kurmann-Schwarz: St. Maria in Biel. P. 17 and 20.
- ^ Kurmann-Schwarz: St. Maria in Biel. Pp. 27-30.
- ^ Kurmann-Schwarz: St. Maria in Biel. Pp. 32–33 and 38.
- ^ Kurmann-Schwarz: St. Maria in Biel. P. 28.
- ^ Organ directory Switzerland and Liechtenstein. Section Catholic Church St. Marien Biel, main organ. Retrieved August 20, 2017.
- ^ Kurmann-Schwarz: St. Maria in Biel. Pp. 16-17, 27-28, 32-33 and 36.
- ^ Kurmann-Schwarz: St. Maria in Biel. Pp. 28-29.
- ↑ a b c d Organ directory Switzerland and Liechtenstein. Section Catholic Church St. Maria Biel, crypt. Retrieved February 12, 2018.
Coordinates: 47 ° 8 '41.3 " N , 7 ° 15' 0.4" E ; CH1903: 585701 / 221553