Thomas Church (Wuppertal)

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View from the southwest shortly after it was built
South and west facade of the St. Thomas Church

The Thomaskirche is a Protestant church in the Elberfeld district of Wuppertal .

description

As the working-class district on Engelnberg grew in Elberfeld , the Evangelical Lutheran community of Elberfeld decided to set up a twelfth pastor's office and build a parish hall on Engelnberg , at that time still outside the urban development. There has been evidence of plans for a V Lutheran Church since 1898, but the architect Adolf Cornehls finally planned a neo-baroque community center with a church hall that could be used in many ways . Construction began in 1909 and the building was inaugurated on May 28, 1910. In October 1910, Wilhelm Rheingans (1870–1914) was introduced as the first pastor of the new parish.

Cornehls designed an asymmetrical building. The east-facing church hall with 622 seats, which was originally only lit by the northern window front, ran towards a central pulpit altar , the organ was on the west side. The west facade, behind the community rooms, is divided into three parts with six large arched windows between flat pilasters , an original gable construction conceals the steep, slated gable roof, which carries a small, domed roof turret at its east end . To the south, different structures lean against the main hall, including a squat bell tower (25 m) with the main portal and other community and living spaces.

The building was spared the war and remained in its original condition until, at the request of the larger congregation in 1959/60, the church service room was extended to the east by a choir room with a colorful glass front , in contrast to some Protestant churches in Wuppertal, which were opened after the Second World War I reduced the size of the church space by inserting false ceilings in order to gain space for community life. The Thomaskirche has been a listed building since 1997. It was badly damaged as a result of arson by a mentally confused man on the evening of April 9, 1998. After extensive renovation work, during which parts of the glass front in the eastern choir were restored in a different form, it was inaugurated again on October 31, 1999. Since then, this event has been reflected in the glass front of the chancel.

The building has been called the Thomaskirche since the 1960s, in 1964 the congregation became independent and in 1981 merged with the Reformed districts on Ostersbaum to form the Evangelical Parishes Elberfeld-Ost. With the closure of the Martin Luther King House in 1993 and the Platz der Republik parish hall in 1995, the St. Thomas Church remained the only place of worship. At the beginning of 2007, it was united with the Uellendahl congregation to form the Uellendahl-Ostersbaum Evangelical Church Congregation and since then has been one of the congregation's three places of worship alongside the Philippuskirche and the Uellendahl parish hall.

literature

Web links

Commons : Thomaskirche  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Arson admitted to clinic. In: Remscheider General-Anzeiger. November 3, 2014, accessed May 17, 2016 .

Coordinates: 51 ° 16 '7.1 "  N , 7 ° 9' 14.4"  E