Notre Dame de Rouen. The façade of the Gothic Church in France. Photographer: Hippo1947. Licence: SHUTTERSTOCK.

Wednesday 14 November 2012

Cologne Cathedral (Part Three)


Text and Illustrations from Wikipedia - the free encyclopaedia,
unless otherwise stated.




English: Cologne Cathedral at sunset. Seen from the Deutz bank of the Rhine.
Deutsch: Kölner Dom bei Sonnenuntergang vom Deutzer Rheinufer aus betrachtet.
Photo: May 2012.
Author: Realjectivity.
(Wikimedia Commons)


The Cathedral suffered seventy hits by bombs during World War II. It did not collapse, but stood tall in an otherwise flattened city. The great Twin Spires are said to have been used as an easily recognizable navigational landmark by Allied aircraft raiding deeper into Germany in the later years of the war, which may be a reason that the Cathedral was not destroyed. It has been claimed that in June 1945 American troops used the Cathedral as a rifle range.

The repairs to the building were completed in 1956. In the North-West Tower's base, an emergency repair, carried out in 1944 with bad-quality brick taken from a nearby war ruin, remained visible until 2005 as a reminder of the war, but then it was decided to reconstruct this section according to its original appearance.

Some repair and maintenance work is constantly being carried out in some section of the building, which is almost never completely free of scaffolding, since wind, rain, and pollution slowly eat away at the stones. The Dombauhütte, which was established to build the Cathedral and repair the Cathedral, is said to employ the best stonemasons of the Rhineland.




The 24-ton St. Petersglocke ("Bell of St. Peter", "Dicke Pitter" in the Kölsch dialect), 
was cast in 1922 and is the largest free-swinging bell in the world. 
A person stands to the right of the bell clapper.
Cologne Cathedral Bell (Peterglocke).
Photo: December 2003.
Author: Randal J.
Permission: CC-BY-SA.
(Wikimedia Commons)


There is a common joke in Cologne that the leader of the Dombauhütte, the Dombaumeister (master builder of the Cathedral), has to be Catholic and free from giddiness. The current Dombaumeisterin is Barbara Schock-Werner. Half of the costs of repair and maintenance are still borne by the Dombauverein.

On 25 August 2007, the Cathedral received a new stained glass in the South Transept window. With 113 square metres of glass, the window was created by the German artist, Gerhard Richter. It is composed of 11,500 identically-sized pieces of coloured glass, resembling pixels, randomly arranged by computer, which create a colourful "carpet". 

Since the loss of the original window in World War II, the space had been temporarily filled with plain glass. The Archbishop of the Cathedral, Joachim Cardinal Meisner, who had preferred a figurative depiction of 20th-Century Catholic martyrs for the window, did not attend the unveiling.





English: Cologne Cathedral. Looking East from the roof of the Nave.
Deutsch: Kölner Dom (Cologne Cathedral). Blick nach Osten vom Dach des Mittelschiffs.
Photo: April 2006.
Author: User:Mkill.
(Wikimedia Commons)


In 1996, the Cathedral was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List of culturally important sites. In 2004, it was placed on the "World Heritage in Danger" List, as the only Western Site in danger, due to plans to construct a high-rise building nearby, which would have visually impacted the Site. The Cathedral was removed from the List of In Danger Sites in 2006, following the authorities' decision to limit the heights of buildings constructed near and around the Cathedral.

As a World Heritage Site, and with its convenient position on tourist routes, Cologne Cathedral is a major tourist attraction, the visitors including many who travel there on a Christian pilgrimage.

Visitors can climb 509 stone steps of the spiral staircase to a viewing platform about 98 m (322 ft) above the ground. The platform gives a scenic view over the Rhine.

On 18 August 2005, Pope Benedict XVI visited the Cathedral during his apostolic visit to Germany, as part of World Youth Day 2005 festivities. An estimated one million pilgrims visited the Cathedral during this time. Also, as part of the events of World Youth Day, Cologne Cathedral hosted a televised gala performance of Beethoven's Missa Solemnis, performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the London Philharmonic Choir, conducted by Sir Gilbert Levine.




Cologne Cathedral Twin Spires.
Photo: August 2009.
Author: A.Unnewehr.
(Wikimedia Commons)

PART FOUR FOLLOWS


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