St. Heinrich, Kiel, Catholic church building in Bluecherplatz, Kiel, Germany.
St. Heinrich is a church building at Bluecherplatz that features a robust reinforced concrete structure with a distinctive star vault inside. The architecture dates to around 1910 and was built using innovative construction methods that were noteworthy for that era.
St. Heinrich was built between 1907 and 1909 to plans by Adalbert Kelm, the only church of his designs ever realised; his earlier Gleiwitz project and a four-tower church for the Marineschule Mürwik stayed unbuilt. Its star vault and main roof stand at the beginning of modern reinforced-concrete construction as taught by Emil Mörsch. In an air raid on Kiel on 24 July 1944 the church was 40 percent destroyed, yet the concrete roof structure was barely damaged; it was restored in 1948 and listed as a monument in 2000/01.
The church is named after Saint Henry and served as a Catholic garrison church in a largely Protestant city. On the exterior wall hangs a memorial plaque for Admiral Maximilian von Spee and his sons, who died in 1914 at the Battle of the Falkland Islands. Since 2014 the parish has belonged to the Franz von Assisi parish of the Archdiocese of Hamburg.
The church is centrally located at Bluecherplatz and is easy to reach on foot when moving through Kiel's old town area. The interior can typically be viewed, and information is available on site or through the local parish.
The four bronze bells are tuned to the notes d', e', fis' and a'. They hang in the tower, not in the nave, so visitors inside the church do not see them. The reinforced concrete roof survived the air raid of 24 July 1944 almost undamaged.
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