Our Lady's Church, Fürth

The Catholic parish church Unsere Liebe Frau stands in Fürth’s old town centre, its neoclassical façade facing east. Leo von Klenze drew the plans in 1824, and the building was consecrated five years later by Archbishop Joseph Maria von Fraunberg. The church replaced an earlier medieval chapel demolished in 1812 after the town’s small Catholic community had failed to buy it. The interior still shows the original ceiling paintings attributed to the Munich school, their rich patterns covering the flat roof. A Madonna and Child carved in 1563 was placed above the apse in 1961, framed by Alfred Heller’s mosaic and stained-glass scenes of the fifteen mysteries of the rosary. In 1972 the liturgical reform brought a Muschelkalk altar and ambo, together with the Eisenbarth organ of twenty-five stops. Visitors enter through the west gable’s portico, then walk the single nave beneath unbroken walls. The south apse holds the altar, while the north side carries the tower with its single bell. Outside, the surrounding square keeps the church at the heart of Fürth’s late 19th-century workers’ quarter.