Construction Documents name
Arnold Rype, a former mayor of Heidelberg, as the church's "master builder". At the time, the term "master builder" referred not to the architect but the financial initiator. The only known architects are Hans Marx, who worked on the church until 1426, as well as Jorg, who was responsible until 1439. Both men probably supervised work on the nave. Under the reign of
Prince-elector Frederick I, a noted specialist in the construction of church towers,
Niclaus Eseler, came from Mainz to Heidelberg and was likely responsible for the execution of the primary work on the church's spire, though the steeple was completed by
Lorenz Lechler. Construction began in 1398 when the cornerstone was laid. The
choir was completed and consecrated in 1411, and the
nave finished in 1441. The construction of the steeple was started in the same year, but works were interrupted until 1508, and the tower was finished in 1544.
Restoration from around 1618. The Church of the Holy Spirit is visible on the right with its original Gothic steeple. During the Palatinate War of Succession, the church was raided by French forces in 1693 and significantly damaged by a fire. A
Holy Ghost hole sits between the eight angels.
Stained glass Heiliggeistkirche's original medieval stained glass windows were destroyed by the fire of 1693. None of the original windows were preserved and no record or attestation to what they looked like exists. To replace the damaged windows, emergency glazing was introduced in the 19th century, principally in the choir and along the south aisle of the nave. Matching windows, installed on the north aisle, were subsequently destroyed in 1945 during the
Second World War. Initially, the German artist
Johannes Schreiter was commissioned in 1977 to undertake the project and design a total of twenty-two pieces, but negative response to his designs and the resulting
Heidelbergerfensterstreit (‘Heidelberg Window Controversy’) meant that only one complete work, the
Physikfenster (‘
Physics Window’) was made and installed into the church, in 1984. Subsequently, the British artist
Brian Clarke was asked to submit a proposal for the remaining windows. His resulting designs drew on the history of the site's location as the repository of the Biblioteca Palatina and its link to the development of Calvinism through the 1563
Heidelberg Catechism. Ultimately, of Clarke's designs were implemented. During the late 1990s, Hella Santarossa won a subsequent 1997 competition for a series of five windows whose core element is treated, broken coloured glass. Santarossa is a member of the Derix family, one of the major stained glass studios in Germany. Her series of five windows were installed in the north nave. This dispute is cited as "the most intense controversy on record involving twentieth century stained glass". Schreiter's designs had previously been debated and tested within a focus group including theologians, art critics, and church attendees. They were then presented to the public in 1984 when the first window was installed on the south isle. This window is known as the "
Physikfenster" (English: "
Physics Window"). Its critical theme immediately became controversial. Critics called the
Physics Window overly conceptual, elitist, and secularly dejected. When sketches of Schreiter's following pieces were released, local parishioners were reportedly disenfranchised by their themes. Protests, parish votes, and petitions ultimately prevented their installation. Nine years after Schreiter was commissioned, the project was officially terminated on June 23, 1986. Schreiter had originally been commissioned to create ten separate pieces for the nave; the ensuing controversy caused the remaining nine to be abandoned. The
Physics Window remains the only work of Schreiter's installed in the church, though other windows from the series have since been purchased and displayed by independent organisations, including other churches and hospital clinics. : (L) = Tuned by Orgelbau Lenter in 1997 == Notable burials ==