St. Gertrud

St. Gertrud stands on Gertrudplatz in Vienna's Währing district, a parish church dedicated to Saint Gertrude of Nivelles. A chapel stood on this spot in the early thirteenth century, first recorded in 1213. It became a parish by 1226, and the dedication appears in records from 1232. Today's late baroque hall church goes back to a foundation stone of 1753, laid by the cloth merchant Michael von Zollern. The square around it keeps a village feel, the Kutschkermarkt sits right next door, and the church offers wheelchair access.

Karl Holey's northern section of 1934 turned the axis from east-west to north-south. The parish honored Saint Lawrence of Rome as a second patron from 1396 until that same year. The baroque hall now forms the transept, and an underchurch absorbs the slope where the street climbs toward the south. Johann Höhne's western tower replaced the old north tower in 1853. Two cannonballs embedded in the front wall commemorate a munitions explosion at the Vienna powder tower in 1779.

Inside, Peter Strudel's Glory of Saint Lawrence has hung since 1872, painted around 1695 for an Augustinian convent. Johann Martin Fischer's crucifixion group of about 1799 stands on the sacrament altar. Heinrich Tahedl's north windows from the 1930s set out redemption in four steps: promise, faith, love, fulfillment. The four major prophets rise at the top, the evangelists hold the middle, and Old Testament scenes fill the base. Leopold Forstner's Gertrud window of 1934 shines on the east side. On the south wall, a cross from 1745 recalls the cemetery that once served Währing, Gersthof, Pötzleinsdorf and Weinhaus.