Marienkirche (St. Mary's Church), a

hall church A hall church is a church with a nave and aisles of approximately equal height, often united under a single immense roof. The term was invented in the mid-19th century by Wilhelm Lübke, a pioneering German art historian. In contrast to an archi ...

in the North German

red brick A brick is a type of block used to build walls, pavements and other elements in masonry construction. Properly, the term ''brick'' denotes a block composed of dried clay, but is now also used informally to denote other chemically cured cons ...

Gothic style Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

, completed in 1298, was the main church of the city of

Neubrandenburg Neubrandenburg (lit. ''New Brandenburg'', ) is a city in the southeast of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany. It is located on the shore of a lake called Tollensesee and forms the urban centre of the Mecklenburg Lakeland. The city is famous for its ...

. It has been transformed into a concert hall, designed by

Pekka Salminen Pekka Salminen (born 11 August 1937 in Tampere) is a Finnish Professor of Architecture and founder and a senior partner of PES-Architects, formed in 1968, in Helsinki, Finland. He is also the founder of Unije Workshop International UWI, and the ...

, which opened in 2001. It then was rededicated as the Konzertkirche (Concert Church). It is widely known for its renowned Philharmony (''Neubrandenburger Philharmonie'').

History

The Marienkirche, which had been badly damaged in the 17th and 18th centuries, was repaired and rebuilt from 1832 to 1841. In the final days of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, it was again seriously damaged. The town of Neubrandenburg decided to convert the ruined church into a concert hall, and restored and renovated it in the 1980s and 1990s. A European architectural competition was arranged in 1996. The implemented plan is based on the winning proposal of Finnish architect Pekka Salminen.

Architecture of the concert hall

The church hall is divided by an acoustic wall (which also acts as a fire screen) into a foyer and a shoebox-shaped concert hall. The hall is implemented in the old walls as a "house within a house", keeping the historic parts visible. A suspended glass ceiling made of glass pyramids in different shapes enhances the acoustics of the hall."Projektinformation: Konzerthalle Marienkirche Neubrandenburg"
''SER Gebäudeautomation''. Retrieved 28 June 2012. The concert hall also serves other functions. Depending on the setup, it has up to 1,100 seats.

References

Literature

* Jacob Friedrich Roloff: ''Erinnerungen an Friedrich Wilhelm Buttel''. Commissionsverlag Gustav Lange, Berlin 1870 * Volker Schmidt: ''Neubrandenburg. Ein historischer Führer''. Hinstorff, Rostock 1997, , pp. 85–87.

External links

Konzertkirche
website

{{Authority control Neubrandenburg

Neubrandenburg Mary Neubrandenburg Mary 13th-century churches in Germany