Zwinglikirche (Berlin)

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Zwinglikirche

The Zwingli Church is a church in the Berlin district of Friedrichshain . The listed church is located in the Rudolfkiez , which also includes Oberbaum City (former site of a light bulb factory). The church belongs to the Evangelical Parish of Boxhagen - Stralau in the parish of Berlin Stadtmitte ; it is used by the KulturRaum Zwingli-Kirche association for cultural events and exhibitions.

location

The main portal of the church is on the west side of Rudolfplatz and is flanked by residential buildings on Rotherstraße and Danneckerstraße up to Rudolfstraße. The building is surrounded by other architectural monuments such as a stable and a border wall from 1904, Sigismund Koch's houses from 1904/1905 and the Auergesellschaft industrial plant (the Osram or Narva complex). In the immediate vicinity of the church, the pavement and the tracks in Rudolfstrasse / Ehrenbergstrasse are also under monument protection.

history

At the end of the 19th century, Rudolfplatz was laid out south of the railway site on Warschauer Straße . On December 2, 1900, a small wooden chapel was consecrated on its south side. It served the rapidly growing population in front of the Stralauer Tor. For this purpose, as a spin-off of the evangelical Andreasgemeinde on Stralauer Platz, a separate congregation had already formed in 1897, which held its services in a rear building on Stralauer Allee. In 1903 it was decided to build a new building and commissioned the imperial building officer Jürgen Kröger (1856 to 1928) for this. His work in Berlin includes the Pentecostal Church on Petersburger Platz , the Christophorus Church in Friedrichshagen and the new building of the old village church Alt-Tegel .

Construction of the new church began on September 11, 1905, and the foundation stone was laid on April 29, 1906. The inauguration took place on February 9th, 1908. The wooden chapel was used until 1907, then dismantled and used until 1912 in the east cemetery Ahrensfelde , where there is a separate burial ground for the members of the Zwingli community. In 1928 a parish hall in late Expressionist forms was added to the church building in Rudolfstrasse.

Structure and equipment

Statue of Huldrych Zwingli
The altar and the statues of Electors Joachim II (left) and Gustav Adolf (right), 1933

The neo-Gothic clinker facing building above a high house stone base shows rich historicizing forms on the facades to the east and north . The portals are crowned by crab-studded eyelashes and decorated with tracery . The east facade shows two gables , large tracery windows and rosettes, the north side a stepped gable. The west side of the church is built into a courtyard. The 81 meter high square tower with its slender eight-sided pointed spire on the northeast corner is visible from afar and characterizes the cityscape. In a niche at the foot of the tower is a life-size bronze figure of the reformer and patron saint Huldrych Zwingli, created in 1907 by Martin Götze .

The decoration of the church relates thematically to the Reformation , especially in the representations of the church windows, which unfortunately fell victim to the war. The star-vaulted asymmetrical hall has galleries on the east and north sides and a walkway in the west. Aisle-like rooms are formed below the galleries. The altar painting, about six meters high, shows Christ walking on the sea. The statues of the supporters of the Reformation, the Brandenburg Elector Joachim II and the Swedish King Gustav Adolf , are made of Carrara marble and are to the right and left of the altar. An organ from the Berlin organ building company Lang & Dinse completes the equipment . The organ is the largest surviving Dinse organ, but it is only playable to a limited extent.

lighting

The Auergesellschaft , whose business was located in the immediate vicinity of the church, was one of the founders of the interior furnishings . The Auergesellschaft achieved a breakthrough in incandescent lamp technology in 1906 with the tungsten filament incandescent lamp patented under the name Osram Lampe . She equipped the Zwingli Church with hundreds of uncovered light bulbs that hang like drops in front of leaf ornaments on the galleries and form a dense row around the parapets and keystones. The Zwinglikirche was the first completely electrically lit church in Berlin. The furnishing of the Zwingli Church was an ingenious advertising coup by the Auergesellschaft at a time when the young technology of electric lighting had to prevail against great mistrust.

Electric light bulbs in the Zwinglikirche

use

Between 1978 and 1993 the building was not used for church purposes, as it was intended for a "new use". During this time it was leased to the Berlin State Library as an archive. From 1993 to 1995 the church was renovated and used again by the evangelical community. Since autumn 1997, long-term new usage concepts have been sought. Since 2003, the church, together with the parish hall, has been used by the parish youth work of the evangelical-free church parishes in Berlin-Brandenburg for child and youth work. The KulturRaum Zwingli-Kirche association was founded in 2006 . This has established a forum for art, culture and history in the church, which gives artists from the fields of film, music, literature and visual arts the opportunity to present themselves. In 2008 he organized the exhibition “Berlin - Upper East Side - 100 Years of Everyday Life at Rudolfplatz” in cooperation with the Kreuzberg Museum. With € 500,000 in lottery funds, which the association received, heating was installed in parts of the church in 2013, the electrical cables were renewed, new sanitary facilities were installed, fire doors and a lightning protection system were installed. The Zwingli Church is now used by both the KulturRaum Zwingli-Kirche association and the Boxhagen-Stralau parish. The professional rental of the church as an event location is carried out by BESONDERE ORTE Umweltforum Berlin GmbH . The GmbH with church partners also operates the Kreuzberg Jerusalem Church and the Friedrichshain Church of the Resurrection as event locations.

The church was used as a location for the Kreuzkirche in the TV series Weissensee .

literature

Web links

Commons : Zwinglikirche  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Zwinglikirche in the Berlin monument list
  2. ↑ Churches of the parish Boxhagen-Stralau
  3. ↑ Stall + Grenzmauer in the Berlin monument list
  4. ↑ Residential houses in Lehmbruckstrasse and Rudolfstrasse in the Berlin monument list
  5. ↑ Industrial plant Auergesellschaft in the Berlin monument list
  6. ↑ Street paving and track systems in the Berlin monument list
  7. ↑ Martin Wiebel: 'EAST SIDE STORY' biography of a Berlin district . Antje Lange Verlag, Berlin 2004. ISBN 3-928974-02-5 , p. 57
  8. ↑ www.boxhagen-stralau.de: Article on the Zwingli Church, accessed on May 8, 2020
  9. ↑ Die Bau- und Kunstdenkmale in der DDR, I, Ed. Institute for Monument Preservation at Henschelverlag, 1989, p. 464/465
  10. ↑ House of God becomes a temple of culture . ( Memento from December 12, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) In: Berliner Abendblatt , accessed on December 11, 2016

Coordinates: 52 ° 30 ′ 12 ″  N , 13 ° 27 ′ 16 ″  E