Klosterkirche St. Anna im Lehel

Abbey Church of St. Anna

High Altar

The Catholic monastery church of St. Anna im Lehel was the first rococo church of Old Bavaria and shaped the development of religious architecture in Bavaria. It is located in the center of Lehel near the Catholic parish church of St. Anna im Lehel.

History

Hieronymites founded in 1725 the less attractive lowland forest left of the Isar, which was later called Lehel, a convent and took the pastoral care for the 2,000 souls who had settled there. Electress Maria Amalia laid the foundation stone for the church in 1727, which built its architect Johann Michael Fischer until 1733. The completion of the interiors tooks till 1737, involving Cosmas Damian Asam, Egid Quirin Asam and Johann Baptist Straub.

During the secularization in 1807 the Hieronymites abbey was lifted and cleared completely, the convent building barracks in 1808. The abbey church became the parish church. In 1827 the Franciscans (OFM) took over the monastery, which they hold to this day.

In the projection of the "St. Anne's suburbs," today's Lehel, the development of the monastic environment was configured. August Voigt built a neo-Romanesque twin-tower facade with an arcades portal and pyramid-shaped ends of the towers in order to classify the church in the upper-class-buildings, to show the solidarity with the Old Town and to create a visual link with the Ludwig's Street.

By an air raid on 29 April 1944, the monastery church of St. Anna im Lehel completely razed to the outer walls. 1946 has already started the reconstruction. The twin-tower facade was removed in 1948, the reconstruction of the interior dragged on until 1979. 1968 Erwin Schleich reconstructed the rococo facade. Behind the church door a part of the original facade of 1772 is still evident. In this respect, the situation today is not the original from 1773: as the portal facade of the convent building is "jumping" forward and is not on a level with the facade. This is typical for baroque monasteries in Bavaria.

Program and Conception

Johann Michael Fischer worked out a critical new solution in his early works: he merges longitudinal and central structure into a new type. He broke the entrenched forms of the architecture of its time: arched recesses replace the hemispherical domes. The stucco framing is used as a transitional zone, which summarizes all the architectural elements rhythmically. The idea is that you want to share the sky.

To achieve this, Johann Michael Fischer has deliberately avoided right angles. The main room is designed oval and consists of two side chapels and four chapels in the corners that do not lie on a common diagonal axis. The western apse with the altar has its equivalent in a semi-circular monastic choir behind her.

References

As of this edit, this article uses content from "Abbey Church of St. Anna, Lehel, Munich", which is licensed in a way that permits reuse under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, but not under the GFDL. All relevant terms must be followed.

Weblinks

• Website of the catholic parish of St. Anna im Lehel
• Photo spread of the Abbey Church of St. Anna im Lehel