St. Paul (Heidelberg)
The Church of St. Paul in Heidelberg 's Boxberg district was built from 1970 to 1972 as a Roman Catholic parish church for the two southern mountain districts of Heidelberg's Boxberg and Emmertsgrund . The church is a listed building.
history
On the 1st of Advent 1964, the first service took place in the provisional school pavilion of the new Boxberg forest park settlement, which had been settled since 1962 . The Catholics still belonged to the parish of St. Johannes in Heidelberg-Rohrbach, before the Curate St. Paul was established as an independent parish on May 30, 1967 ; first as Pfarrkurat coined Rudolf Farrenkopf for nearly four decades as a pastor, the resulting young congregation on the mountain (until 30 April 2004). The architect Lothar Götz was commissioned to build a community center with its own church in the Boxberg district. Construction began on October 10, 1965, and construction of the church began in November 1970 as the third and final phase of construction. The Archbishop of Freiburg , Hermann Schäufele , officially consecrated the new church on May 28, 1972 . In the main altar there are relics of St. Urbicus and St. Virginia. As with many buildings of that time, the exposed concrete suffered considerably from weather and environmental influences over the years , so that in 1992 the church and the other buildings had to be fundamentally renovated for the first time. The church was then given a protective coating, under which, however, the originally striking structure of the wooden formwork was lost. In this context, after more than two decades, the church was clearly marked from the outside as a Christian sacred building in the call of the Hallelujah bunker from Boxberg , by attaching a large, simple wooden cross to the north-west corner. The parish of St. Paul, together with the parishes of St. Johannes ( Rohrbach ) and St. Peter ( Kirchheim ), has been part of the Heidelberg-South pastoral care unit since 2005 .
Architecture and description
The church building of St. Paul is a towerless, cuboid and at first glance repellent, windowless construction made of exposed concrete in the strict formal language of so-called brutalism . The purpose of the completely closed walls and the unusually far outward tilted parapet panels of the roof rim is to shield the room from street noise. The exposure takes place exclusively from above through the windows of a shed roof , which lies behind the angled roof rim.
The church's windowless exposed concrete panels are divided by deep, vertical grooves at regular intervals, which are continued in the outward sloping roof elements. This roof, which appears to be open at the top, towers over all other parts of the building and gives the church its unusual, but unmistakable and significant (funnel) shape.
The church building is the dominant feature of an ensemble consisting of a parsonage with several apartments , youth rooms and the community hall with the kindergarten below, which was built in a U-shape around a space consisting of three levels and open to the east on a hillside sloping to the west. The French monastery of Sainte-Marie de la Tourette designed by the architect Le Corbusier can be described as a model here. The arrangement of the buildings - the church in the north, the parsonage and youth rooms in the west, the community hall and kindergarten in the south - creates a central courtyard from which all buildings can be accessed and at the same time the meeting place for the community and, on the lowest level, the anteroom to the church is. Two large covered terraces on the top level provide a wide view of the Rhine valley to the west and south. Access to the rectory and the apartments, the sacristy, the parish hall and the youth rooms is on the top level from this courtyard; the entrance to the church is on the lowest level. An exception is the kindergarten, which is accessed from the south below the community hall via a separate footpath. Due to the height of the parish hall, the southern wing of the building is higher than the western one with the youth rooms and rectory.
The two or three-storey facades on the south and west sides are vertically structured by building-high, load-bearing exposed concrete elements in the rhythm of the walls inside and cut horizontally by continuous balcony galleries made of raw concrete. These galleries are floor-to-ceiling windows that are firmly glazed in massive, black wooden frames and are accessible from every room. The rooms are ventilated through closable ventilation slots. Another striking design element here is the parapet , the surrounding roof rim made of exposed concrete slabs, which closes off the individual structures at the top and at the same time marks their functional independence. The sides facing the inner courtyard have a closed wall cladding made of vertical aluminum panels, only interrupted by the respective entrances. All balcony and entrance doors are floor-to-ceiling, massive wooden doors which, in addition to the glass of the window surfaces, the aluminum and the exposed concrete, have their own creative power.
The parish center of St. Paul, in particular the significant structure of the church, the external shape of which on closer inspection suggests both an open vessel and the early Christian ornamentation , is a built space for the collection of the congregation . The architecture of the complex is a consistent structural implementation of the theological considerations and formal demands of the liturgical movement around the theologian and priest Romano Guardini and the architect Rudolf Schwarz , which a few years earlier had only been included in the teaching texts of the Second Vatican Council (October 1962 - December 1965) about the church and the liturgy .
St. Paul does not have a bell tower, as the cost of building the church seemed too high and the sound of bells would only have been audible in a small part of the parish area due to the hillside location.
Church interior
The entrance to the church, which is deep into the building, is on the south side and can only be reached via the inner courtyard. The floor inside is made of Melaphyr - street paving . Whoever wants to enter the church has to walk a distance and change direction or level several times. After passing through the portal, the "path into the church" continues - analogous to the theology of the catechumenate - initially with a walk through a dim vestibule and a necessary "turn by 90 °" at the end, before the actual worship room continues the lower altar as the center is bright and spacious. Logically, the baptismal font should be at this "turning point" . So that the church service community can better participate in the baptism, it is located to the right of the altar area in connection with the confessional chambers. In order to mark a turning point at this point, the holy water font stands here , with the water of which believers entering can visualize their own baptism in the sign of the cross . The church service room is a rectangular, column-free and windowless hall that receives indirect light from above. Vertically suspended, large-format wooden panels made of Afrormosia wood form an imposing ceiling grid that distributes the incoming, both natural and artificial light evenly across the entire room regardless of the time of day and shields the direct view of the roof structure. The nine rounded rows of benches and the organ case, ambo , sideboard , sedile and the altar table in the weekday church are also made of afrormosia wood. The pavement runs through the entire interior and thus interprets the worship space as a forum and as a road for the people of God on the way . Organ and choir have their place at the parish level.
The paved floor descends slightly amphitheatrically towards the clearly marked but unrestricted altar area. The use of fewer materials (concrete, natural stone and wood) and the strict restriction to clear, unambiguous forms sharpen the view for the essentials and support the concentration on what is happening at the altar, which is a solid block carved from the same rock as the pavement. In contrast to the roughly hewn paving stones, all sides of the altar are sanded smooth. It stands free on a two-tiered altar island in front of the southern longitudinal wall, around it the rows of benches, which can accommodate 500 people, are arranged in a semicircle so that the congregation is captured in the "open ring" around the altar (the architect Rudolf Schwarz developed the idea of the open Ring pioneered modern church building of the 20th century from the early 1930s : “... the congregation, which is the Lord's body, never closes itself to the ring, it cannot do it because man is a creature that never remains in itself, a judged and open being. [...] We consider neither the ring, as it remains imprisoned in it, nor the separation of the Middle Ages to be the appropriate form in which a praying community appears before the Lord, because their God is far away, but the “open ring.” This is a form in which the community truly stands around the altar and truly finds its center in it. But it only stands around it on three of its four sides and the fourth page remains open. The gaze is concentrated on the altar, but they go through it and beyond it ”. )
To the left of the altar the bronze tabernacle can be seen, which seems to hold two half-height wall panels together at right angles like an oversized, cross-shaped hinge , at the intersection a large rock crystal indicates the sanctuary at this point. These wall panels separate part of the church space for a small church service on working days. This so-called weekday church, which is also directly accessible from the vestibule, offers space for 40 people and an intimate setting for personal prayer outside of worship times. If you enter this room from the vestibule, your gaze falls on a simple wooden cross with the late medieval figure of the crucified Christ from an unknown Spanish workshop, which hangs on the wall behind the simple altar table to the left. In the right corner - like a corner stone - you can see the back of the tabernacle, which is accessible from both sides and also here with a rock crystal. The work of Josef Henger from Ravensburg was handed over to its destination in Advent 1975. In the back of the weekday church , raised on a wooden pedestal, there is a "Madonna with Child", a work in Gothic style by Josef Rifesser , which stands in an attractive contrast in front of the bare concrete wall.
In the main room, to the right of the altar, the wooden ambo is highlighted by a step as the place where the word of God was proclaimed ; to the right behind the altar are the sediles .
Confession and baptism have their place to the right of the altar area, whereby the two confessional chambers stand as concrete cubes in the space in front of the southern longitudinal wall and cover the access to the sacristy. In the vertical exposed concrete formwork and its height and length dimensions, they correspond to the wall panels of the weekday church. The place for baptism is immediately in front of the confessional rooms. Due to the location of the church and according to the biblical image of living water (the Boxberg is rich in water sources), the baptismal font was designed as a real fountain with water bubbling out of four openings. Unfortunately, it was not possible to actually connect the baptismal font to any of the springs. Outside the Easter festive season, next to the baptismal font is also the location for the impressive Easter candlestick . The baptismal font, Easter candlesticks and the free-standing altar and lecture cross are also works by Josef Henger from Ravensburg.
The large altarpiece is a work by Valentin Peter Feuerstein , which was painted in oil on canvas over a period of several years. On June 21, 1987 it was ceremoniously handed over to the congregation and stands like a retable in front of the southern wall behind the altar. Three smaller pictures each on the right and left and the large picture in the middle illustrate in bold colors the covenant of God with man in scenes from the Old and New Testaments , the center of the large picture is the opened heart (Christ) as a symbol of God's mercy , that accompanies people on their way through time.
The Way of the Cross along the north wall and the large-format pictures with depictions of the parish patrons Paulus , Hedwig von Andechs and Thomas More on the front wall of the vestibule were created as panel paintings by Teresa Wierusz and Barbara Dega-Komitowska in 1994–96 and 2002 respectively .
Schwarz organ
The financial resources freed up by doing without a bell tower were invested in a higher quality two-manual organ from Wilhelm Schwarz & Sohn in 1973 . The instrument has 25 sounding registers with 1826 pipes. The disposition is neo-baroque .
The organ was overhauled, cleaned and re-voiced from December 2012 to Whitsun 2013 by the Lenter company from Sachsenheim. The total costs for this amounted to around 70,000 euros, of which the parish had to raise around 58,000 euros itself. Part of the costs could be earned through sponsorship for organ pipes.
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Pastor and pastor
| Period | Office | Pastor | Remarks |
|---|---|---|---|
| before 1966 | Alwin Schneider | ||
| Jan 15, 1966 - Apr 30, 2004 |
Pastor | Rudolf Farrenkopf (* 1929 - † 2007) | first pastor |
| May 1, 2004 - September 30, 2004 |
Parish administrator | Dr. Klaus von Zedtwitz | |
| Oct. 1, 2004 - May 31, 2013 |
Pastor | Karl Müller (* 1938 - † 2014) | Leading pastor for the parishes St. Johannes, St. Paul, St. Peter in the pastoral care unit Heidelberg-Süd |
| since Oct. 1, 2004 | Pastor | GR Kurt Faulhaber ( Schoenstatt Diocesan Priest ) | Pastor for the parishes of St. Johannes, St. Paul, St. Peter in the pastoral care unit Heidelberg-Süd, since June 1, 2013 leading pastor of the pastoral care unit |
| 2004-2010 | Cooperator | Father Bernhard Brinks SCJ (* 1946 - † 2012) | |
| Retired Pastor | Dr. Ludwig White | ||
| since November 2010 | Retired Pastor | Fritz Ullmer |
literature
- Hans Gercke: Churches in Heidelberg . 1st edition. Schnell and Steiner, Regensburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-7954-2413-8 .
- Rudolf Schwarz: Liturgy and church building, memorandum, on the occasion of the new building of the Sankt-Annen-Kirche in Berlin-Lichterfelde (1936), published in konturen , rothenfelser burgbrief 02/04.
Web links
- Pastoral care unit Heidelberg-Süd
- Parish center St. Paul on the website of the architect Lothar Götz
- St. Paul Church Leader
- Parish Church of St. Paul as "Church of the Month" on the website of the Archdiocese of Freiburg
Individual evidence
- ↑ State Office for Monument Preservation (publisher): Monument topography Federal Republic of Germany, cultural monuments in Baden-Württemberg, city district of Heidelberg , Thorbecke-Verlag 2013, ISBN 978-3-7995-0426-3 .
- ^ Rudolf Schwarz : Liturgie und Kirchenbau (1938): published in Konturen. (Rothenfelser Burgbrief 02/2004, 10), online at Rudolf Schwarz, Liturgie und Kirchenbau: Konturen. (Rothenfelser Burgbrief 02/2004, 10.) ( Memento of the original from December 15, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 1.9 MB)
- ↑ More information about the organ on the municipality's website.
Coordinates: 49 ° 22 ′ 25.1 ″ N , 8 ° 42 ′ 11 ″ E