St. Maria in den Benden (Düsseldorf)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
St. Maria in den Benden

St. Mary in the Benden is a by architect Emil Steffann designed and in 1959 inaugurated the parish center of the same Catholic parish in the Düsseldorf district of Wersten .

history

As a result of the extensive development of Benden , west of the Kölner Landstrasse, which began in 1934 - a field name used for wet meadows in the Rhineland - the number of Catholics here also increased sharply in the 1950s. Further growth was foreseeable because the KAB Düsseldorf was planning to build a settlement in this area.

The decision of the Archdiocese of Cologne in 1953 to divide the parish of St. Maria Rosenkranz into four parishes also led to the separation of a new parish in the Benden . In 1955, preliminary planning began for a parish center on Dechenweg, not far from an earlier brick factory and the sports field that has existed since 1949. After only one and a half years of construction, it was completed in September 1959, and the church of the " Immaculate Conception and Our Lady Maria consecrated". In order to document the character of a building that was expressly integrated into the landscape and development, the field name was integrated in the name of the church and parish.

At the end of the 1970s, the premises were no longer sufficient for the congregation, which has now grown to over 3,200 members. In particular, the parish hall had become too small and the group rooms were provisionally located in a wooden barrack in the open space of the kindergarten. Therefore, an extension was built for an enlarged parish hall and additional group rooms, which have been in use since 1985.

A pastoral care unit was created in 1984 from both Wersten parishes , to which the Himmelgeister parish of St. Nicholas was added in 1992 . Since 2008, the church of St. Maria in den Benden has been one of five parish churches of the pastoral care unit in Düsseldorf Rheinbogen , which also includes the Catholic parishes in Holthausen and Itter .

architecture

View from the organ gallery to the church with the altar island and apse

The building at Dechenweg 40, which has been a listed building since the mid-1990s, was designed by Steffann, who as a member of the Catholic youth movement Quickborn had been trying to renew the Catholic liturgy and church building since the 1930s , together with his colleague Nikolaus Rosiny . “Like a barn !”, So statements after the completion of the shell , it fits into the environment of one to two-story single - family houses with pitched roofs and large gardens and is reminiscent of the stable of Bethlehem . Facing brickwork made of bricks as a symbol of a community made of living stones create a "maternal, Marian room" for a community center, in which the church , parish hall, rectory and kindergarten are arranged under a shared saddle roof around a square inner courtyard similar to an atrium . A high glass facade closes off the rectangular church interior to the southwest towards the courtyard and extends from the floor to the roof ridge , which is why a lot of light can get into the otherwise windowless room. It can be opened in the lower area to enlarge the space for church services. From the ridge of the roof, the wood-paneled ceiling drops evenly over the altar island to the outer wall with its large apse . The other sloping roofs of the complex, inclined at the same angle, leave the impression that the space in the inner courtyard is also closed at the top.

For Steffann, places of worship were “sheltering space” and “inns on the path of the wandering people of God in the midst of a world alienated from God”. Jürgen Joedicke writes about him: “The order he was looking for arose for him from the meaning of the task and the spirit of the place [...]. What he was looking for was an architecture of simplicity, indeed poverty, in which space is kept free for the real things in life. ”The architecture of the Church of St. Maria in den Benden also follows these principles. The path leading from a closed space in front of the church portal via the vestibule with baptismal font along the inner courtyard to the high rear of the church interior describes the lateral, non-central access through a structured sequence of rooms as a further feature of the churches built by Steffmann. The unusually designed concrete floor of the church, in which pebbles of different sizes are embedded, creates a reference to the surrounding landscape and its proximity to the Rhine .

  • Path to the entrance portal via vestibule with baptismal font in the courtyard

  • View over the altar island to the side porch and inner courtyard

  • View over the altar island to the inner courtyard

Furnishing

The church bell is freely visible on the outer facade not far from the entrance portal and received a saying from Angelus Silesius when it was cast : "In eternity, no sound can be as lovely as when the human heart agrees with God." In the years 1960 to 1964 Leonie Alt from Solingen set idiosyncratic accents in the church with the nativity scene , the Pietà and the Madonna .

Originally, the pews were arranged in three groups, each interrupted by a central aisle, around the rectangular altar island, which was raised only one step and partially delimited by a railing. To facilitate access from the vestibule to the church and moving from the sacristy to the altar, a smaller part of the benches are now arranged diagonally in the relevant areas and the central aisles have been omitted.

The free-standing altar was also located closer to the apse and was raised by a further step, so that priests could celebrate Holy Mass on it in the manner customary until the Second Vatican Council . The Tabernacle in cylindrical form belongs only after the transfer of the altar to equip the church and is on a free-standing in the apse base. The colored interior design of the closed, rather simple-looking tabernacle is impressive.

At Christmas time , the altar is roofed over by a wooden structure and the church interior is transformed into a Christmas crib in which the church visitors become crib figures, which is why most of the figures placed on the floor in front of the altar could also be left out. In any case, the arrangement of a crib, which is unique in Düsseldorf, only reflects the same character of the entire parish center already intended by the architects.

organ

The organ was built in 1961 by the organ builder Johannes Klais (Bonn) and stands on a choir gallery , which is located in a niche above the sacristy and can be reached directly from the church via a straight staircase that is visible from there. The slider chests -instrument has 13 registers on two manuals and pedal . The playing and stop actions are mechanical.

I Hauptwerk C – g 3
1. Reed flute 8th'
2. Pointed 8th'
3. Principal 4 ′
4th Forest flute 2 ′
5. Mixture V
II upper structure C – g 3
6th Wooden dacked 8th'
7th Venezialner flute 4 ′
8th. Singing dumped 4 ′
9. Principal 2 ′
10. Nasard 1 1 ⁄ 3  ′
11. Third bell tone II
Tremulant
Pedal C – f 1
11. Sub bass 16 ′
12. Open bass 8th'
13. Quintad 4 ′

International pastoral care

The Catholic Polish Mission in Düsseldorf is also located in the parish center, which is why a Holy Mass is celebrated here every Sunday and public holiday in Polish.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Tino Grisi: "Can we still build churches?" «Possiamo ancora costruire chiese?» Emil Steffann and his / e il suo atelier . Ed .: Albert Gerhards u. a. (=  Image - Space - Celebration: Studies on Church and Art . Volume 15 ). Schnell & Steiner, Regensburg 2014, ISBN 978-3-7954-2872-3 , pp. 128-158 .
  2. ↑ Heimatverein Werstener Jonges eV: Wersten> Geschichtliches> Anno 1063 to this day in well-being in Wersten - the informative internet portal for Düsseldorf-Wersten of the SPD local association Düsseldorf-Wersten
  3. ↑ a b c d Pastoral care unit in Düsseldorf Rheinbogen : St. Maria in den Benden, Wersten. Retrieved May 3, 2016 .
  4. ↑ Manfred Becker-Huberti (Ed.): Düsseldorfer Kirchen - Die Catholic Kirchen im Stadtdekanat Düsseldorf , JP Bachem Verlag, Cologne 2009, p. 87.
  5. ^ Gisberth Hülsmann : Emil Steffann 1899-1968. Werk, Bauen + Wohnen, 1981, accessed on May 3, 2016 .
  6. ↑ More information about the organ ( Memento from August 4, 2012 in the web archive archive.today )

Web links

Commons : St. Maria in den Benden  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 51 ° 11 ′ 3.4 "  N , 6 ° 48 ′ 49.9"  E