St. Andreas Church
| Reformierte Kirche Uster | |
|---|---|
Uster church as seen from the tower of the Uster Castle
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| Basic information | |
| Location |
Uster, Canton of Zürich Switzerland |
| Geographic coordinates | 47°20′45.1″N 8°43′0.4″E / 47.345861°N 8.716778°E |
| Affiliation | Reformed |
| District | Evangelical Reformed Church of the Canton of Zürich |
| Website | Official website (German) |
| Architectural description | |
| Architectural type | Church |
| Architectural style | Classicism |
| Completed |
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Reformierte Kirche Uster (native German name, literally: Uster Reformed Church) is an Evangelical Reformed church in the Swiss municipality of Uster in the Canton of Zürich that was built in 1824. The predecessor St. Andreas church, situated next to the Uster Castle, was given by the House of Rapperswil and first mentioned in 1099 AD.
The church is situated in the center of the municipality of Uster on a small rocky plateau near the Uster Castle. The church was built below the conspicuous tower of the castle on a roughly 30 m (98 ft) high longish moraine hill between Oberuster and Kirchuster at an elevation of about 480 m (1,570 ft) just 75 metres (246 ft) westerly of the castle. It is located in Kirchuster, a locality of the municipality of Uster in the Canton of Zürich. On the southwestern slope a vineyard is situated, overloocking the Greifensee towards the Pfannenstiel–Forch mountain chain.
From the known historical illustrations, the historians Kläui and Gubler tried to derive the architectural history of the former church that may have been built around 1099 AD or before: The Romanesque building was a three-nave, four-bay pillared basilica with a central nave and church tower. The nave was much higher than the aisles, so that it had a basilica-analogue row of window above. In 1353 an extension of the northern aisle was carried out to house a chapel (Landenbergerkapelle). The reconstruction of 1469–1473 into a pseudo-basilica included increased aisle walls, the single roof truss over the three naves, the reconstruction of the west facade (buttresses, Gothic door and window), larger windows on the north side, and perhaps by analogy on the south side. The sacristy was attached to the Landenbergerkapelle, perhaps also the polygonal choir was arisen. The choir, including the sacristy, was rebuilt in 1669. The historian Paul Kläui leans, in addition to imagery, to the Jahrzeitbuch of 1469–1473, and to the comparable ground plan of the church of Oberwinterthur. The building sequence according to Kläui and Gubler therefore assumes that a Romanesque church has influenced significantly the well-known floor plan of the church of 1823, that was broken in that year.
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