St. Jakobi, Brick Gothic church in Lübeck's Old City, Germany
St. Jakobi is a three-aisled Brick Gothic hall church at the Koberg, built around 1300. Its square west tower carries a copper-green spire with four balls at the corners, added in 1657/58, and a baroque ridge turret of 1622–28 sits on the roof. The central nave walls rise five metres above the side aisles, and stepped gables and tall pointed windows line the south side.
A Romanesque hall church on this site was first mentioned around 1227 and destroyed in the great fire of 1276. The present Brick Gothic hall church was built from around 1300, and in 1334 Bishop Heinrich II Bochholt consecrated the new altar table and choir. The tower lost a quarter of its roof in a 1375 storm and was rebuilt in stages, receiving its four corner spheres in 1657/58.
St. Jakobi is the church of seafarers and fishermen, whose guild hall, the Schiffergesellschaft, still stands opposite; its patron is Saint James the Elder. The northern tower chapel has been the Pamir national memorial for civil seafaring since September 2007, holding a lifeboat from the four-masted barque that sank in 1957 with 80 of its 86 crew. The church is a station on a branch of the North German Way of St. James, together with the Heiligen-Geist-Hospital and the Gertrudenherberge.
The church is centrally located in the Old City and easily accessible on foot, though it functions primarily as an active place of worship. Visitors should check opening times in advance and observe respectful conduct during services.
The tower's four corner spheres date from the 1657/58 renewal of the spire, echoing but not copying the corner turrets of St. Petri. A copperplate charter by the arithmetic master Arnold Möller records the work and everyone involved, and it survived later fires. Lightning struck the spire several times, most recently in 1901, when it burned for about a day.
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