St. Pölten Protestant Church

The Evangelical parish church in St Pölten stands between the Schießstattring, Julius-Raab-Promenade and Heßstraße, its neogothic tower facing the promenade and its long façade along Heßstraße. Built in 1891–92 to plans by Ludwig Schöne, the church has a pyramid-roofed tower with a pointed-arch portal, a relief of the Agnus Dei and a rose window. The façade is marked by rusticated stonework, stepped buttresses and a row of round arches beneath the eaves. Inside, the nave is covered by a ribbed vault and the choir ends in a straight wall. The neogothic altarpiece, designed by Emil Fuchs, shows a central panel of the crucifixion. After a 2014 renovation the church and its adjoining parish house were joined by a glass-roofed foyer that forms an atrium used as a community hall. The sanctuary itself was reordered in plain modern forms while preserving original fabric under guidance of the Federal Monuments Office. The 1959 Pirchner organ, one of the first mechanical instruments built in eastern Austria after the Second World War, still uses the wind system of the 1892 predecessor. Its two new registers were added during the 2014 restoration by Walter Vonbank. The parish house, designed by Josef Zeillinger in 1900, completes the group with its own neogothic front to the Schießstattring.