A short time ago the interior of the Christkönig Church in Weßling was a single construction site.
But now everything hangs and stands in its place again.
More than two years of renovation and a six-month closure lie behind the church.
It will open again tonight.
Weßling
- There are still workers doing gymnastics on the roof of the Christkönig church, but that's all: The renovation of the Christkönig parish church in Weßling has been completed. On this Friday evening, believers can experience the church on a night of lights from 7:00 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. And on Sunday, November 21st, a festive reopening service will begin at 10.30 a.m. Before that, at 10 a.m., architect Dr. Klaus Pilz on what has happened in the past six years of planning and construction. He and church caretaker Brigitte Reichert are delighted with the completion of the project, which of course had some surprises in store.
Pilz knows a lot about the renovation of old places of worship. Since 1990 he has been involved in numerous repairs to various churches in the diocese of Augsburg. The main focus was on listed, Romanesque or Baroque church buildings. Such a listed church as in Weßling, commissioned in 1937 and inaugurated in 1939, "that was a new challenge for me too," he says.
It all began in 2016 with intensive investigations into the building fabric. However, the roof and ceiling structure could only be checked after the mineral fiber insulation in the entire roof space had been removed. Then it turned out that the hemispherical roof of the apse in particular had suffered severely from moisture. The 18-meter-high tower onion, which could not even be accessed due to the lack of intermediate levels, gave no insight at all.
The question of how the apse could be re-covered alone cost a lot of time. Because forms for the bricks that tapered upward no longer existed. Developing molded bricks from scratch, "that would have cost 100,000 euros per form set, we would have quickly found costs of up to 1 million euros," explains Pilz. The cost factor would ultimately have convinced the monument protection authority and the Bavarian State Office for Monument Preservation to switch to sheet copper dishes.
There were other surprises too. The height of the nave with rectory and parsonage as well as onion bulbs, determined from the planning documents, deviated from reality by two meters. The boom of the construction crane could therefore not pivot freely over the tower. The erection of a larger crane failed due to poor floor conditions in the erection area. Finally, the work on the tower onion was covered by a people and material elevator. How this tall tower onion came about in the first place remains a mystery. “In the architect's first plan drawings, it wasn't even included, but rather a squat, five-meter-high onion,” says Pilz. Only later did the tall onion appear. In October 2019, 284 Weßlingers were allowed to go up to the tower, an experience.The tower was then re-roofed with cedar shingles on a total area of almost 500 square meters. The woodpecker had done a lot on the old shingles and hacked innumerable holes in the shingles. The new, rear-ventilated construction is said to be less insect-friendly and thus also worsen the food supply for the woodpecker.
At the end of 2019, the covering of the apse was largely completed. Those involved could not lean back for a long time. “The exterior plaster caused surprises the whole time,” explains Pilz. There were voids everywhere. “That was mainly due to the shortage of materials during construction in the pre-war years.” Finally, in spring 2020, plastering was carried out again.
Then the pandemic began, and the electrical installation inside the church was supposed to be replaced. "It was already difficult to get offers from companies because of the boom," says Pilz. In September 2019, the project management of the Diocese of Pilz asked to take over the planning and supervision of the repair of the parish apartment and the administration. That should be completed by the end of October 2020. "But then we noticed that the use of the ground floor as office space was not covered, and the change of use had never been applied for." So a building application had to be made, and in the course of it a re-evaluation of the fire protection. The renovation work could not begin until October. The plumbing, heating and electrical installations were renewed and revised,the bathrooms and toilets from the 1970s were remodeled, old wooden floors sanded down.
At the same time, extensive work took place inside the nave. Sacrifice Robert Schmitz and helpers from administration and parish cleared figures of saints, images of the Stations of the Cross and side altars in the parish hall, only the altar cross remained. The newly laid pipes have only been plastered a few days ago, and the church has been furnished. If you are puzzled because the walls are still not bright white: The interior painting is not eligible and was therefore not included in the project. As a result, the restorers mixed dirt into the paint during the plastering work so that the places where the cables were newly laid don't shine so brightly. In addition to the electrics, the loudspeaker system was renewed, and there is now an inductive listening system.
So the whole thing was also a bit of an adventure, if you listen to the explanations of the architect Pilz.
Reichert is happy that the church is open again.
Services had taken place in the village churches all around, "but many people are not that mobile and the churches are smaller".
There is now more space in the Christ the King Church.
"I very much hope that they will dare to come back."