Hauptkirche Sonnborn, Protestant church in Sonnborn district, Wuppertal, Germany
The Hauptkirche Sonnborn sits on a hilltop overlooking the Wupper river with modern design features and expressionist character. A glass extension completed in 2006 serves as a family church space for contemporary community use.
A church first stood on this site between the 6th and 9th centuries and was documented in 874 as 'basilica quae est in Sunnebrunno'. The property fell under the control of Gerresheim Abbey.
The name Sonnborn derives from "Sunnebrunno", the form recorded in 874. The congregation has been Reformed since at least 1539, when pastor Hermann Wemmers was appointed. Since 2006 a glass room beneath the gallery, built to plans by the Ahad office, serves as a "Familienkirche" and community café; it won the Bund Deutscher Architekten's first prize for good buildings in 2007.
The church sits on elevated ground above the valley with good accessibility from the city center and panoramic surroundings. Information about current events and access is available at the site itself.
The tower's bell chamber holds two bells from 1453 and 1458 that already hung in the tower of the 9th-century church; they rank among the oldest surviving bells in the Bergisches Land. The tower itself stops at 45 metres in a neo-Gothic balustrade around an observation platform, because the planned roof was never built.
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