St. Isidor

The Filialkirche St. Isidor stands in the village of St. Isidor within Leonding, a town in Upper Austria. It is a modern Roman Catholic church built between 1951 and 1952 by architect Hans Arndt. The building belongs to the parish of Leonding-Hart and is protected as a monument. It is part of the St. Isidor children’s village run by Caritas and combines modern design with elements of the Heimatstil. The church occupies the upper floor, reached by a staircase beneath arched colonnades. The church is a two-storey rectangular structure with a hipped roof and a tall tower added later. The entrance features three large round-arched arcades forming an open porch leading to the upper-level nave. Below, the ground floor houses a gymnasium. The tower rises on the north-west corner, its base pierced by smaller arcades, while a matching low arcade marks the opposite stairway. The side walls are highlighted by tall rectangular windows that extend into the eaves. Inside, a continuous pointed barrel vault spans the full height, its shape shaped by the roof truss overhead. Inside, the focus is the monumental apse mural depicting a multi-layered Crucifixion. Around the outer zone are the symbols of the Evangelists in mandorlas and the archangel Michael with scales. The inner zone, shaped to follow the vault, shows the Crucifixion divided by a horizontal band of clouds. Below are figures of a praying woman and child on one side, and a boy with a nun on the other, set against architectural backdrops. Above the clouds hangs Christ on the cross, flanked by the Virgin Mary on one side and an angel with a child on the other, with the hand of God the Father and the dove of the Holy Spirit above. An ornate wooden gallery with an organ faces the main altar, and the church retains its original wooden pews and fittings.