
Historisch
Sacred Heart Convent
Social Security Office
The Sacred Heart Convent was built between 1899 and 1901 as a convent, a private hospital with eye clinic and a station for outpatient care, according to the plans of architect Klaus Röhlinger. At the time it was built, with a height of 17 metres and a frontage of 57 metres, it was one of the largest buildings in the city. The building’s owners and providers were the ‘Neuss Congregation of Cellites according to the Rule of Saint Augustine’, in short ‘Augustinian Sisters’, founded in 1852.
By 1844, under the leadership of Johanna Etienne from Grimlinghausen, these had already undertaken the care of the sick in the city hospital on the Brückstrasse. In the course of extending the scope of their activity, they acquired a building with a small chapel (‘To the Most Sacred Heart’) on Michaelstrasse in 1874. This so-called Sacred Heart Convent served as a residence for the sisters involved in outpatient care and, with 30 beds for private health care, formed the starting point for the later hospital, which replaced the hospital on Brückstrasse from 1901.
Also belonging to the new convent complex was the so-called ‘White House’ - a classical outbuilding built in the convent’s garden around 1909. It housed a home economics school with boarding school and the utility rooms for the sisters of the order. In addition, a nursing home for older women and a nursing school were also located in the convent buildings.
During the Second World War, the convent complex was badly damaged. Following reconstruction, the buildings continued to serve as a hospital until the completion of the Johanna Etienne Hospital on the Furth, inaugurated in 1968. Finally, the city’s Sacred Heart Old People’s Home was set up in the main building. After the building of the new Sacred Heart Home near the Upper Gate, the city administration took over the old building in 1989, in which the social security office is now located. The convent’s chapel was not rebuilt. A restaurant is located in the ‘White House’ today.
Sources and texts: Neuss municipal archives
Graphic design: Cornelius Uerlichs
Translation: A.C.T. Fachübersetzungen GmbH