St. Nikolai (Kücknitz)
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/86/HLStNikolaiFront.jpg/330px-HLStNikolaiFront.jpg)
St. Nikolai is an Evangelical Lutheran church made of wood in the Hanseatic city of Lübeck . Like the Lübeck Cathedral, the church bears the name of Nikolaus von Myra .
It was built by children and young people in 2007 as the youngest church building in the city and is a replica of a Norwegian stave church from the 12th century. The church is located on the grounds of the Roter Hahn construction playground , a construction and history playground in the Kücknitz district .
It was built in a new section of the construction playground. The church is located next to a recreated Viking village with a typical nave and a warehouse building on posts . St. Nikolai is to be expanded in the coming years with a medieval monastery complex with dining and dormitory, workshops, sacristy and bathing room. The church is intended for church services and is available for church services, weddings and baptisms.
history
The Viking village was originally intended to be supplemented by a Slavic farm. The club management finally decided on a proposal from the office for applied archeology from Lower Saxony (Agil) for the reconstruction of a simple stave church. Construction began in May 2007 under the direction of social worker Martin Ehler.
Children and young people who regularly visit the construction playground, as well as students from schools in Lübeck, built the church. In total, they built 25 to 30 solid cubic meters of wood . The construction work was professionally supported by Agil and the Archaeological Institute of the University of Hamburg , as well as supervised by craftsmen.
The cost of the oak wood from the region was around 80,000 euros. The funds come from the bingo! - Lottery of the North German Broadcasting Corporation . The personnel costs for the skilled craftsmen in charge were taken over by Aktion Mensch .
The Church of St. Nikolai was handed over to its destination on February 29, 2008 at a service with the participation of the Lübeck Bishop Bärbel Wartenberg-Potter .
Church building
construction
The church building was constructed as a wooden stave church. It is a simple long church with a slightly narrower choir and an approximate replica of the Haltdalen stave church built around 1170 , which was moved to Trondheim in 1884 and has been part of the Trøndelag Folkemuseum since 1937 . The open-air museum is located in the Sverresborg district of Trondheim. Haltdalen stave church is one of the oldest and simplest in Norway and one of the thirty preserved stave churches in the world with medieval structures. The St. Nikolai Church in Kücknitzer is around 40 square meters and was built entirely from local oak.
The typical bar construction is based on the vertical in contrast to block construction , which is based on the horizontal plane . The simple stave churches like the model from Haltdalen only had load-bearing masts in the corners and outer walls and no high column construction separated from the walls inside.
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c3/HLStNikolaiChor.jpg/220px-HLStNikolaiChor.jpg)
In contrast to authentic stave churches with round pillars, the corner pillars of St. Nikolai have a square base. In contrast to the Haltdalen stave church, they also lack a spherical base . The corner pillars have a cross groove and have been slipped over the lower beam frame, which was placed on a stone foundation made of field stones . This stone pad protects the wooden structure from moisture rising from the floor. The construction with cross grooves creates the greatest possible stability without nails, which were extremely rare in the time of the stave churches in Norway due to a lack of metal. The wooden pillars in the corners of the nave and the choir end, similar to the Haltdalen church, in another deep cross groove into which the upper beam frame was let. The bars for the roof support are also located in this groove. In contrast to the model in Haltdalen, the frame construction was reinforced in the choir on each side with a narrower vertical beam in the middle. The frame structure of the ship has two reinforcing beams on each side. The walls were built with horizontal boards embedded in a groove in the frame. Since the boards have a longitudinal groove, they could be pushed into one another. In contrast to Haltdalen Stave Church, St. Nikolai did not put in a partition between the choir and the nave. At St. Nikolai, the monopitch roof that the Haltdalen stave church once had and that was reconstructed in the replica of the Heimaey stave church in Iceland was dispensed with .
The saddle roof construction consists, as in the example in Haltdalen, of scissor rafters and long collar beams as well as hanging triangles under the intersection of the scissor rafters. The gables were also made with vertical boards that were attached to the beams below with wooden nails. The gable roof is covered with shingles made of split oak.
Portals
In contrast to Haltdalen Church, the church has no choir portal. The side portal is wider and closer to the choir. The main portal is also wider. The carved lintel of the main entrance is modeled on the south portal of St. Wilhadi Church in Ulsnis. In the middle sits Christ with a halo , his right hand raised in blessing with an outstretched index, middle finger and thumb and in his left hand a box or a book. Abel stands on the left with a sheep as an offering in his hands and on the right Cain with a gift of corn, behind him a devil who gives him the idea of fratricide. The door fittings are made of wrought iron and were made in the forge of the construction playground.
Interior and equipment
The interior of the church is decorated with wood carvings by Frank Thomas, which are thematically based on the pre-Christian times in Norway and show Odin and a mask with a crown. The church has no seats. In the choir room there is an altar with a square floor plan made of field stones on a raised area. The altar has a larger wooden panel above and below. The church's furnishings also include a copy of a Danish crucifix from the 12th century, which was shown in an exhibition in Lübeck in 2003.
Ten years after its construction, the artist Felix Karweick painted the partitioning of the church ceiling with 24 large-format biblical motifs. He was guided by panels from a Swiss church from the 12th century. The work was completed in 2018. The costs of 20,000 euros were financed by the Lübecker Sparkassenstiftung.
Bell tower
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/74/HLStNikolaiGlockenturm.jpg/170px-HLStNikolaiGlockenturm.jpg)
The bell tower stands apart from the church. The bell was cast by the Rincker foundry from Sinn in Hesse based on the Romanesque model. The bell tower consists of a simple saddle roof as a bell chamber. The gable roof stands on two beams that are slightly curved outwards. For stabilization, there is a cross beam just below the gable roof as a support for two support beams.
See also
- List of stave churches
- Gustav-Adolf-Stave Church (replica of Borgund stave church , 1908)
Literature and Sources
- Roar Hauglid: Norwegian stave churches . Dreyer Verl., Oslo (Norway) 1977, ISBN 82-09-00938-9 . (German translation; Norwegian original title: Norske stavkirker )
- Sabine Latzel: St. Nikolai: Lübeck's new church ( Memento from March 12, 2008 in the Internet Archive ), LN online , February 28, 2008
- Sebastian Prey: St. Nikolai: Bishop inaugurates the Kücknitz wooden church , Lübecker Nachrichten , March 1, 2008, p. 13
Web links
- Official website of the association Bauspielplatz Roter Hahn e. V.
- Photos of the construction work , picture gallery on the website of the construction playground Roter Hahn e. V.
- Lübeck historical experience area: wall stave church , construction playground Roter Hahn eV
Individual evidence
- ↑ Sabine Latzel: St. Nikolai: Lübeck's new church ( Memento from March 12, 2008 in the Internet Archive ), LN online , February 28, 2008
- ↑ Archaeological Institute of the University of Hamburg ( Memento of the original from March 12, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Medieval fun for all age groups , Lübecker Nachrichten of August 21, 2018, p. 12
Coordinates: 53 ° 55 ′ 16.4 " N , 10 ° 49 ′ 39.4" E