Wang Stave Church
The Wang Stave Church is a medieval Norwegian stave church from Vang , which was acquired by the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm IV in 1841 and rebuilt in Brückenberg (today Karpacz Górny ), now part of Krummhübel (today Karpacz ) in the Giant Mountains . The church is made of Norwegian pine and is richly carved, for example with depictions of animals and ornaments. A separate walkway around the nave is used for meditation purposes and protects the interior of the church from the cold. The load-bearing structure of the building consists exclusively of wooden parts and does not use iron nails.
history
Position before the first transfer
According to oral tradition, the church is said to have originally stood at a different location near Vang. It was then moved to Vang and rebuilt. The probably shortened columns suggest that such a relocation and renovation took place. In the drawings made by FW Schiertz in 1841, they have no connection to the roof, which rests directly on the outer walls. Such a construction is very unusual and probably not primary.
Location until 1841
The church stood from about the third quarter of the 12th century to 1841 in the southern Norwegian village of Vang in the Valdres region in a churchyard in the heart of the village right next to the Vangsee . A memorial plaque is placed in its original place. The new church of Vang was built next to the stave church. The arcade was demolished in 1839 to make room for the new church. The stave church and the new church stood side by side for several years; the stave church was used for services until the inauguration of the new church on April 9, 1840.
Transfer to the Giant Mountains
When the stave church was cleared for demolition, it was bought by the Norwegian painter Johan Christian Clausen Dahl . His plan to set it up in Oslo City Park failed. Since he was living in Dresden at that time , he managed to get the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm IV to buy it for 427 marks. Dahl's pupil, the painter and architect Franz Wilhelm Schiertz , dismantled the church in Vang in 1841, dismantled it into its individual parts and moved it to Berlin. There, the building on the Pfaueninsel was to be rebuilt somewhat differently. However, this project was not realized.
After being transported to Stettin and on to the Royal Museum in Berlin, it was brought to Krummhübel (now Karpacz ) in the Giant Mountains in the spring of 1842 on the initiative of Countess Friederike von Reden . Count Christian Leopold von Schaffgotsch gave the property on the Schwarzen Berg in Brückenberg as a gift . The place is below the Schneekoppe . On August 2nd, 1842, Friedrich Wilhelm IV. Laid the foundation stone and on July 28th, 1844 the ceremonial opening and consecration took place in the presence of the king. After the countess's death in 1856, a memorial plaque was erected in her honor by the architect Friedrich August Stüler with a relief made of alabaster on the mountain slope near the church. The new free-standing granite bell tower with two bells was also designed by the architect.
Next to the church is a parsonage with a parish room and a modern woodcut sculpture of the risen Lazarus . The sculpture was donated on July 28, 1994 by the Silesian Order of St. John, the Association of Protestant Silesians and the von Kassel family. There is also a small gift shop.
Partner church
The partner church of Wang Stave Church is the Gustav-Adolf-Stave Church in the Goslar district of Hahnenklee-Bockswiese in the Harz , consecrated on June 28, 1908 , which was built as a free replica of the Borgund stave church from around 1000 .
Architecture and furnishings
Foundation
The church is 15.50 meters high with the flagpole. The nave is 9 meters long, 7.50 meters wide and is bordered by four corner masts. In the interior there are four free-standing masts that support a retracted ceiling. Unlike in the other stave churches, the masts end inside the church and do not go through to the gable roof. An organ gallery is installed between the western masts and the western wall of the ship at a height of 2.20 meters . In order to illuminate the interior of the church from the arcade, arched windows with slug panes were inserted into the walls of the nave. A mast begins above the ceiling and extends into the tent roof of the ridge turret. At its end there are two dragon heads and the flagpole attached. A 3.80 meter long and 5.10 meter wide choir adjoins the nave, which is also bordered by four corner poles. There are two additional supports at the transition between the choir and nave. Together with the two western corner posts, they form a three-arched opening to the ship. There is a semicircular apse on the east side of the choir . Around the church there is an approximately 80 centimeter wide arcade, which is interrupted by a sacristy in the north. This has an area of approximately 2.30 × 1.85 meters.
Roof construction
The roof structure is modeled on the Borgund stave church and, like this, carries crosses and dragon heads on the roofs. This roof ornament and its frequent repetition very probably had an apotropaic function . At the Wang stave church it was installed for aesthetic reasons in order to come very close to the original appearance of a medieval stave church.
Today's church has a four-tier roof structure that makes the church look like a pagoda and emphasizes the direction towards heaven. The dominance of vertical alignment in stave churches is similar to that in French Gothic churches . It very probably had the symbolic meaning that the churches were already mediators between the earth and the heavenly world through their architecture.
A pent roof covers the arcade around the church. On the apse is a copper dome with five long windows rounded at the top. On the dome, which is atypical for stave churches and more in line with the Baroque , sits an apse tower with a cross. The choir and the nave are covered with gable roofs. The roof decoration on the ridges of the gable roofs made from a carved strip is called the roof ridge. This ends on the roofs of the choir and the nave with a dragon's head. The gable roof of the ship carries a two-tiered roof turret , which in turn ends in a gable roof and a tent roof with dragon heads.
West, north and south portals with extended monopitch and saddle roofs give the church a cross-shaped base. There are five tall, narrow windows in each of the gables. This and the other design of the porches are rather unusual for stave churches. Crosses sit on the roofs of the south and north portals, and dragon heads on those of the west portal.
Arcade
The arcade was added in 1844. The arbors have arched windows with slug panes . There are some lamps in it for lighting. From the north portal the corridor leads to the sacristy and then to the east around the apse, on the south side to the west and finally to the west portal. From the west portal to the north, the arcade leads to the west wall of the sacristy.
Masts and capitals
In order to match the old architecture in Vang, the masts were arranged in the same way as they are shown in the drawings by Schiertz. Four main masts support a flat ceiling with tongs, arches and arched knees. Even with the rebuilt church, the roof does not rest on the masts, but on the side walls. The original preserved are the four main pillars with capitals , the four corner pillars of the outer walls of the nave, the four corner pillars of the eastern choir wall and the pillars with capitals on the side of the choir. The two middle pillars of the choir entrance with the motifs David and Goliath as well as Daniel in the lions' den were newly carved by Jacob from Jannowitz near Hirschberg.
The carvings on the main pillars are not as old as those on the portals. They probably come from the 17th century. The two east columns have smooth edges at the top, the west columns have braided or twisted edges. The ornamentation of the capitals shows the following motifs:
On the north-eastern capital with intertwined tendrils, a man is fighting a lion with a club. He reaches into the mouth of the animal lying on its back with his right hand. The representation is reminiscent of Samson or David. The ornament also includes a horned ox or bull facing a wolf-like animal. The two animals probably lift one foot each in a defensive position.
In the original eastern part of the northwestern capital, a kite-like animal fights a large predator-like creature that is bitten in the stomach by a small dog. On the left, a predator carries a dog in its mouth. Further animal fighting motifs have been added to the expanded western side, a wolf on the northern side and a winged animal on the western side that bites the predator in the back.
In the southeastern capital, snares like Odin's stream of air escape from the mouths of masks. They loop into one another like a pretzel , stretch across the entire capital and end in the foreheads of the masks.
In the south-western capital, the western part of which had to be completed, the leaves of intertwined creepers bite each other's tails like the heads of lindworms .
Northeastern capital
Northwest capital
South-east capital
Southwest capital
Portals
The three portals in west, north and south were reused by the old church in Vang, but their position was reversed. The former south portal became the north portal and the former west portal became the south portal. They were also turned inwards. The carvings on the portals probably had an apotropaic function when they were made and were intended to deter beings from the spirit world (for example demons ) so that they could not get inside through the portals. The north side of the stave churches often did not have an open portal, as it is turned away from the sun and is most exposed to the nocturnal spirit world. The turning inwards was probably for aesthetic reasons and was intended to give the carvings a new look. Saving the portals was very important to Dahl.
Some of the portals were very damaged and had to be restored. The restoration work was carried out by Jacob from Jannowitz .
The south portal (former west portal) was carved in the modified Sogn-Valdres style. It has half-columns with mask motifs, each depicting a man blowing air out of his mouth. They are very likely depictions of the god Odin . The pillars end in cylinder capitals. The archivolt is shaped like a clover leaf and consists of a tendril carving with two dragons biting into each other. The tympanum was supplemented with a lead-glazed slug. The portal was also framed with columns during the relocation. The door was also completed and provided with decorative iron fittings typical of many stave churches.
The north portal (former south portal) is carved in the Sogn-Valdres style. It resembles the south portal and also has half-columns with mask motifs and cylinder capitals. The archivolt is horseshoe-shaped with an inserted slug disc. The carvings have a floral pattern with two dragons biting into each other. The door also has iron fittings. The portal was framed with new columns.
The west portal (former choir portal in the south) has smooth half-columns. Protective lions sit on the capitals. The fall is straight. The ornamentation is a so-called animal chain composition and consists only of pure animal motifs.
The portal at the main entrance has been re-carved. Like the west portal, it is framed by two main pillars and has two protective lions on the capitals. These were stolen in 1995 and could be seized from Sotheby’s in Cologne in 1999 . They were returned in the same year.
The south portal (former west portal)
The north portal (former south portal)
The west portal to the arcade (former south portal of the choir)
Newly carved west portal at the main entrance
Bell tower and bells
The bell tower was built of stone to protect the wooden church from the strong mountain winds. It towers over the church with a height of 18.6 meters. It has a square base with a side length of 3.76 m. It is connected to the church by a covered arbor. In contrast to the church, the tower is made of coarse granite . The gable roof also has two dragon heads on the ridge and a small roof turret. A clock board is attached to each side, each weighing over 300 kg. The clocks come from the iron foundry in Neusalz on the Oder . The clockwork was made by the Hirschberg watchmaker Scheer. The tower carries three bells from Christian Ludwig Pühler's Gnadenberg bell foundry , which were raised on May 18, 1844 and rung for the first time.
The bells weigh 350, 175 and 75 kg. On the largest one reads “Praise Christ” and the verses Psalm 103, 1-4. The name "Our Father" and the entire Our Father is on the middle bell . These two bells are housed in the tower. In the roof turret sits the smallest bell "Lamb of God" with the biblical text John 1, 29. The bells were donated by the king and the inscriptions were determined by him personally. A visitor to the Riesengebirge, Gustav Ritter from Grabow, wrote a poem for the mountain church Wang in German times: “The church Wang greets from high mountains / With its dragon heads to the wide open country / This church, which has been for centuries / before it was planted high stood in the north. "And he concluded his verses in a way that is also legendary and close to nature:" A bell sound floats through the still air, / Swings up to the ridge, descends into the valley / An echo listens that gently calls him back, / And God Peace reigns in the Reich von Rübezahl. "
Facility
The organ has six registers , can be played by a manual , and is located on the gallery of the church. It was built by the Schmiedeberger organ builder Schinke.
In his monograph, Erich Gebhardt describes a baptismal font made of polished Kunzendorfer marble from the Cantian workshop in Berlin. In today's church, however, there is a baptismal font in the Lower Silesian Baroque style. It was created around 1740 and comes from the demolished church in Dittmannsdorf . After the end of the First World War, the furnishings included a wooden memorial plaque in the nave for those who fell from 1914 to 1918, on which the first and last names of those who were wounded in the theaters of war in the parish were listed, including Alfred Teichmann, who ran the Berghotel Teichmannbaude as a hotelier in 1922 AG founded.
local community
The church was used by a German parish until the summer of 1946. The cantor in Wang, Peter Eisert, wrote: “And again a young couple comes to the old mountain church to beg for blessings and prosperity and always to be happy. Thank you for your love and kindness, which you have done to us both, and lead us on as before towards eternity. But we fold our hands and ask in the association: 'Hear our pleading, oh Lord in the old mountain church.' ”After the expulsion of the Germans, a small Polish Evangelical Lutheran congregation formed as early as 1946 , which is the church for services and weddings , Baptisms and concerts. Before the Polish services, services in German take place on Sundays and public holidays from May to September at 9:00 a.m.
graveyard
On August 9, 1844, the cemetery of the Wang Church was laid out, which was used by the Brückenberg parish for over a century. The long-time pastor Erich Gebhardt († 1919), the mayor Hermann Breiter and the last German pastor Ernst Passauer are buried there. The latter was shot dead in a night robbery on the rectory on February 9, 1946. From 1946 the cemetery was no longer used. “What the dead at the Wang Church would say to the living visitors”, Max-Preiß-Preusser from Wroclaw summed up in a poem: “Wanderer stand still and pray for me, soon someone else may be praying for you too! We have all gone into eternity before you, without fear, at the highest request. - We sleep in peace, so leave us alone, you too will surely come to us in time. - So rejoice in life - like we once did, enjoy your existence on earth here; - Because life is short, full of worry, - little joy, and long, you will soon rest with us in eternity. - And if we see each other in God's heavenly heights, then we would all have the best reunion! ”- Only the composer and conductor Rudolf Jonas was buried there in 1949. Since 2001 urn burials are again permitted for parishioners. Numerous German gravestones are still preserved. The world-famous Polish pantomime and theater director Henryk Tomaszewski was buried there in 2001 and the Polish director Stanisław Różewicz in 2008.
reception
Wang Stave Church served as the template for the church in the 2014 computer game The Vanishing of Ethan Carter . In this adventure game by the Polish development studio The Astronauts , the exterior of the church and parts of its interior are photorealistically modeled using 3D graphics ; players can explore the abandoned interior of the stave church.
Picture gallery
HDR image of the stave church.
Look into the choir
View of the gallery with the organ
Roof turret
Lazarus sculpture
Slug window from the inside
Slug window from the outside
Exterior detail
See also
literature
- Ludwig Böttger : The church Wang near Brückenberg in the Giant Mountains, together with contributions to the knowledge of old Norwegian timber construction . In: Ministry of Public Works (Hrsg.): Zeitschrift für Bauwesen . 41st year. Berlin 1891, p. 27–40 ( www-docs.tu-cottbus.de [PDF; 42.6 MB ; accessed on December 26, 2013] Digitized version of the entire volume, article from p. 10).
- Erich Gebhardt: The Wang Church in the Giant Mountains and its history. Hamburg: Agency of the Rough House 1908.
- Anja Rösner: Wang Church - A stave church from Norway's fjords to the Giant Mountains . Labonde, Grevenbroich 2006, ISBN 3-937507-09-4 .
- Arne Berg: The Vang stave church and its long journey . In: Claus Ahrens (Ed.): Early wooden churches in northern Europe (= publication of the Helms Museum ). No. 39 . Hamburg 1981, p. 481-498 .
- Raimund Wolfert: Wang Stave Church: Gem in the Giant Mountains (= Northern Europe Forum . No. 4 ). 1994, p. 34-36 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d Claus Ahrens: The early wooden churches of Europe. Catalog. Konrad Theiss Verlag GmbH, Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3-8062-1397-6 , p. 332.
- ↑ a b c d e Anja Rösner: Church Wang, journey of a stave church from Norway's fjords to the Giant Mountains. Heiner Labonde Verlag, Grevenbroich 2006, ISBN 3-937507-09-4 .
- ^ Herbert Reiher: Norwegian stave churches . S. 65 .
- ↑ Grieben's travel guide. Volume 81. Edited by Paul Werth, Berlin 1919–1920, p. 50.
- ^ Website of the website of the church council of the Ev.-luth. Hahnenklee-Bockswiese parish
- ↑ a b c d Rösner, pp. 84–87
- ↑ a b Erich Gebhardt: The Wang Church in the Riesengebirge and its history. Reprint and conversion into a modern typeface of the edition of 1908. DJO - German Youth in Europe, Bonn 1991, p. 28.
- ↑ a b c Rösner, pp. 87-89.
- ↑ a b c d Erich Gebhardt: The Wang Church in the Riesengebirge and its history. Reprint and conversion into modern typeface of the 1908 edition. DJO - German Youth in Europe, Bonn 1991, pp. 47–49.
- ^ Erich Burger: Norwegian stave churches - construction, history, jewelry. DuMont Buchverlag, Cologne 1978, ISBN 3-7701-1080-3 .
- ↑ Jerzy Rataiski: KARKONOSZE na dawnych widokówkach. Giant Mountains in old postcards. Jelenia Góra, 2005, ISBN 83-89863-11-1 , p. 154.
- ↑ a b c d Gebhardt, pp. 25-26.
- ↑ Postcard before 1945 with the complete poem Church Wang in the Riesengebirge as well as a short description of the building history and a lithograph by Alfred Gelbhaar, Meißen, self-published by Gustav Ritter, Grabow, Mecklenburg.
- ↑ Rösner, p. 94
- ^ Postcard: Photo-Kleeberg photo and publishing house, Krummhübel-Brückenberg
- ↑ To the Teichmannbaude see Meyer's travel guide Riesengebirge, Leipzig 1926, p. 113 u. 117.
- ↑ The set words with the melody are printed on a contemporary postcard, postmarked 1936, together with the Wang Church. The postcard was published by Werbe-Kunst-Atelier Verlag W. Staudte, Hirschberg Rsgb.
- ↑ Text on an old German postcard with the cemetery and the "Berg-Kirchlein Wang" of the Preußers Schriftenneuheiten company, (formerly) Breslau, Bockstraße 5
- ↑ Screenshot gallery from The Vanishing of Ethan Carter with a picture of the stave church on adventurecorner.de (accessed on May 10, 2019)
Coordinates: 50 ° 46 ′ 38.4 " N , 15 ° 43 ′ 26.5" E