Karlskirche (Zweibrücken)

The Protestant Charles Church is next to the Church of Alexander the landmark of the Western Palatinate Zweibrücken.

Architectural History

In 1707, Charles XII decided. the construction of a Lutheran church in Zweibrücken. The groundbreaking ceremony was held by Count Palatine Gustav Samuel Leopold on June 15, 1708. Five architects submitted plans for the church, including the Swede John Erikson Sundahl, who later built the ducal palace in Zweibrücken, and, also from Sweden stately builder Haquinus serpent. On August 11, 1707 the congregation decided to design Haquinus serpent. Its ground plan shows a rectangular hall building with chamfered corners. When the exterior elevation is divided by a Pilasteranordnung. The wall should be due to the circumferential inside galleries have two superimposed window zones. When the construction was carried out by the bricklayer and stonemason John and George Koch, this however, have been combined in a round arch windows. 1711 the exterior, in 1715 the interior was completed. From 1733 to 1858, the church served as a court church.

Destruction in 1945 and reconstruction 1964-1970

On March 14, 1945, shortly before the war ended, the church was almost completely destroyed by the air raids. Almost twenty years it remained a ruin. Reconstruction began in 1964 and ended in 1970 according to plans of Richard Hummel. This one has drawn a continuous ceiling height in the former galleries. The ground floor has since community halls and upstairs of the church. Thus, the windows have received their bifurcation after the original, original plan of Haquinus serpent. Today, high hip roof projects with its upward -growing from the building 50 m high tower and its attached tail hood up again from the streets of the city.

The Phoenix

After the reconstruction of the sculptor Gernot Rumpf created for the entrance hall the sculpture of the elevating phoenix from the ashes as a symbol for the new first marriages the church after its destruction. He sits on a broken column, which derives from the also destroyed in the war Alexander Church.

Bells

It became known that the current bells then hung on Zweibrücker Central Station. These two bronze bells date from 1857 and the bell-founder Frederick Lindemann from Zweibrücken. These are matched with the beat tones e "and g" and are rung by hand.