Heilige Familie, Modern church in Stockum, Düsseldorf, Germany
Heilige Familie is a modern church in Stockum built with a concrete structure, red brick facades, and glass blocks arranged in exposed concrete compartments. The building features a column-free interior that uses large windows to flood the space with natural light.
The building was constructed between 1960 and 1962 following plans by local architect Hans Schwippert, replacing an earlier structure from 1934. It underwent major renovations from 2002 to 2003 when a floating tabernacle was added.
The parish grew from a 1930s wooden barrack that served as a provisional worship room for the area's Catholics. The present church holds an altar cross by Kurt Schwippert, a Stations of the Cross cycle by Fritz Peretti, and coloured windows by Hubert Spierling installed in 1985. The suspended tabernacle, hung on steel cables, dates from the 2002–2003 redesign.
The church stands on Heinefeld in Stockum, a district settled only from 1923. The single-storey parish centre, added in 1978–79 to the semicircular east wall, is where parish activities take place. The interior has no columns, so the whole semicircle around the altar is visible from the entrance.
The suspended tabernacle, installed during the 2002–2003 redesign of the chancel by Gisbert Dahmen-Wassenberg, hangs between floor and ceiling on steel cables. It is meant to express the mediation of the Blessed Sacrament between people and God. The parish centre attached to the east wall in 1978–1979 repeats the semicircular plan but rises only one storey.
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