bavarikon4U
Description
With 10,000 soldiers, Ulm had one of the largest garrisons in the German Empire around 1900. Theodor Fischer won the competition for a Protestant garrison church, announced by the Imperial War Ministry in 1905, ahead of his teacher Friedrich von Thiersch. In a reversal of conventional church layouts, Fischer placed the apse at the west end, with an entrance hall in front. To the east, two towers shaped like grenades accentuate the church's design.
Fischer designed a single-nave church to create a column-free space with excellent visibility and acoustics for a large congregation. The impressive span of 25 metres at the time was made possible by reinforced concrete trusses, which Fischer shaped based on visual impression rather than static calculation ("Fischer arches").
The use of exposed concrete in a sacred building was revolutionary in Germany at the time it was constructed. The buttresses protruding from the exterior also make the building’s construction visible, turning the structural framework itself into a means of architectural expression. The young architect Le Corbusier (1887-1965) was so impressed by the building during his visit to Germany in 1910 that he sought a position with Fischer.
The impressive original plaster model was transferred to the Architecture Collection by the St Paul's Parish in Ulm in 2000.