Lutherkirche Barop

The Lutherkirche Barop stands in the Barop district of Dortmund. Pastor Wilhelm Römer set the building in motion between 1911 and 1913, because his growing congregation had outgrown the old Margarethenkapelle. Gustav Mucke of Hagen drew the plans. He worked in the historicist style, folding in elements of Art Nouveau and Art Deco. The sandstone facade owes its lines to the Eisenach Regulation of 1861.

Intricate wall paintings and ceiling panelling filled the interior until the early 1970s, when the church had them removed. The North German artist Max Schegulla then redesigned the windows and the interior space. Alfred Führer crafted the organ that was inaugurated in December 1974. A decommissioned pneumatic organ from 1913, built by the Link Brothers of Giengen, survives as well. The listed building seats 295 people, with room for thirty more. It remains the central meeting point for the evangelical community in Dortmund's southwest, hosting worship and cultural events.

Look up into the tower and you will find cast steel bells from 1913, tuned to C, E flat and G flat. A mechanical clock beside them is still wound by hand. Each Christmas season, an ecumenical crib appears in the church, its figures drawn from many different cultures.