The
Dresdner Frauenkirche ("Church of Our Lady") is a
LutheranEvangelical Church in Germany is a federation of 22 regional Lutheran, Reformed and United Protestant church bodies. The EKD is not a church in a theological understanding, because of the denominational differences...
church in
DresdenDresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....
,
GermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
.
The Dresden Frauenkirche survived the
firebombing of DresdenThe Bombing of Dresden by the British Royal Air Force and United States Army Air Force between 13 February and 15 February 1945 remains one of the most controversial Allied actions of the Second World War...
during
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
but was totally burned out and collapsed the next day. It has been reconstructed as a landmark symbol of reconciliation between former warring enemies. The reconstruction of its exterior was completed in 2004, its interior in 2005 and after 13 years of rebuilding, the church was reconsecrated on 30 October 2005 with festive services lasting through the Protestant observance of
Reformation DayReformation Day is a religious holiday celebrated on October 31 in remembrance of the Reformation, particularly by Lutheran and some Reformed church communities...
on 31 October.
Once a month, an
AnglicanAnglicanism is a tradition within Christianity comprising churches with historical connections to the Church of England or similar beliefs, worship and church structures...
EvensongEvening Prayer is a liturgy in use in the Anglican Communion and celebrated in the late afternoon or evening...
in
EnglishEnglish is a West Germanic language that developed in England during the Anglo-Saxon era. As a result of the military, economic, scientific, political, and cultural influence of the British Empire during the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries, and of the United States since the mid 20th century,...
is held in the Frauenkirche, with clergy sent from St. George's Anglican Chaplaincy in Berlin.
History
The Frauenkirche was built as a Lutheran (Protestant)
parish churchA parish church, in Christianity, is the church which acts as the religious centre of a parish, the basic administrative unit of episcopal churches....
or city church, even though
SaxonyThe Free State of Saxony is a federal state of Germany, located in the southeastern part of present-day Germany. It is the tenth-largest German state in area and the sixth largest in population , of Germany's sixteen states.Long in the heart of German-speaking Europe, Saxony became one of the new...
's
Prince-electorThe Prince-electors of the Holy Roman Empire were the members of the electoral college of the Holy Roman Empire, having the function of electing the Holy Roman Emperors....
, Frederick August I, was Catholic.
The original
BaroqueBaroque architecture, starting in the early 17th century in Italy, took the humanist Roman vocabulary of Renaissance architecture and used it in a new rhetorical, theatrical, sculptural fashion, expressing the triumph of absolutist church and state. New architectural concerns for color, light and...
church was built between 1726 and 1743 and was designed by Dresden's city architect
George BährGeorge Bähr , was a German architect.- Life :George Bähr was born into a poor family of in Fürstenwalde , the son of a weaver...
who did not live to see the completion of his greatest work. Bähr's distinctive design for the church captured the new spirit of the Protestant
liturgyA liturgy is the customary public worship done by a specific religious group, according to its particular traditions. The word may refer to an elaborate formal ritual such as the Eastern Orthodox Divine Liturgy and Catholic Mass, or a daily activity such as the Muslim salat and Jewish services...
by placing the
altarAn altar is any structure upon which offerings such as sacrifices and votive offerings are made for religious purposes, or some other sacred place where ceremonies take place. Altars are usually found at a shrines, and they can be located in temples, churches and other places of worship...
,
pulpitA pulpit is a small elevated platform from which a member of the clergy delivers a sermon in a house of worship....
, and
baptismal fontA baptismal font is an article of church furniture or a fixture used for the baptism of children and adults.-Aspersion and affusion fonts:The fonts of many Christian denominations are intended for baptisms using a non-immersion method, such as aspersion or affusion. The simplest of these fonts has...
directly centered in view of the entire congregation.
In 1736, famed organ maker
Gottfried SilbermannGottfried Silbermann was an influential German constructor of keyboard instruments. He built harpsichords, clavichords, organs, and fortepianos; his modern reputation rests mainly on the latter two.-Life:...
built a three-manual, 43-stop instrument for the church. The organ was dedicated on 25 November and
Johann Sebastian BachJohann Sebastian Bach was a German composer and organist whose ecclesiastical and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...
gave a recital on the instrument on 1 December.
The church's most distinctive feature was its unconventional 96 m-high dome, called
die Steinerne Glocke or "Stone Bell". An engineering feat comparable to
MichelangeloMichelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni , commonly known as Michelangelo, was an Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, poet, and engineer...
's dome for
St. Peter's BasilicaThe Papal Basilica of Saint Peter , officially known in Italian as the ' and commonly known as St. Peter's Basilica, is located within the Vatican City. St. Peter's Basilica has the largest interior of any Christian church in the world, holding 60,000 people. It is the symbolic "Mother church" of...
in
RomeRome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated municipality , with over 2.7 million residents in , while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat to be 3.46 million. The metropolitan area of Rome is estimated by OECD to have a population of 3.7 million...
, the Frauenkirche's 12,000-ton
sandstoneSandstone is a sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized minerals or rock grains. Most sandstone is composed of quartz and/or feldspar because these are the most common minerals in the Earth's crust. Like sand, sandstone may be any color, but the most common colors are tan, brown, yellow,...
dome stood high resting on eight slender supports. Despite initial doubts, the dome proved to be extremely stable. Witnesses in 1760 said that the dome had been hit by more than 100 cannonballs fired by the
PrussiaPrussia was a historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries this state had substantial influence on German and European history...
n army led by
Friedrich IIFrederick II was a King of Prussia from the Hohenzollern dynasty. In his role as a prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire, he was Frederick IV of Brandenburg. He was in personal union the sovereign prince of the Principality of Neuchâtel...
during the
Seven Years' WarThe Seven Years' War lasted between 1754 and 1763 and involved all of the major European powers of the period. The war pitted Prussia and Britain and a coalition of smaller German states against an alliance consisting of Austria, France, Russia, Sweden, and Saxony...
. The projectiles bounced off and the church survived.
The completed church gave the city of Dresden a distinctive silhouette, captured in famous paintings by
Bernardo BellottoBernardo Bellotto was an Italian urban landscape painter or vedutista, and printmaker in etching famous for his vedutes of European cities . He was the pupil and nephew of Canaletto and sometimes used the latter's illustrious name, signing himself as Bernardo Canaletto — fraudulently, according to...
, a nephew of the artist
CanalettoGiovanni Antonio Canal better known as Canaletto, was a Venetian painter famous for his landscapes, or vedute, of Venice. He was also an important printmaker in etching.- Early career :...
(also known by the same name), and the
Dresden by moonlight by norwegian painter
Johan Christian DahlJohan Christian Claussen Dahl , often known as J. C. Dahl, was a Norwegian landscape painter, who was connected to the Romantic movement...
.
In 1849 the church was at the heart of the revolutionary disturbances known as the
May UprisingThe May Uprising took place in Dresden, Germany in 1849; it was one of the last of the series of events known as the Revolutions of 1848.-Events leading to the May Uprising:...
. The Frauenkirche was surrounded by barricades, and fighting lasted for days before those rebels who had not already fled were rounded up in the church and arrested.
For more than 200 years, the bell-shaped dome stood over the skyline of old Dresden, dominating the city.
Burials include
Heinrich SchützHeinrich Schütz was a German composer and organist, generally regarded as the most important German composer before Johann Sebastian Bach and often considered to be one of the most important composers of the 17th century along with Claudio Monteverdi...
and
George BährGeorge Bähr , was a German architect.- Life :George Bähr was born into a poor family of in Fürstenwalde , the son of a weaver...
.
Destruction
On 13 February 1945, Anglo-American allied forces began the
bombing of DresdenThe Bombing of Dresden by the British Royal Air Force and United States Army Air Force between 13 February and 15 February 1945 remains one of the most controversial Allied actions of the Second World War...
. The church withstood two days and nights of the attacks and the eight interior sandstone pillars supporting the large dome held up long enough for the evacuation of 300 people who had sought shelter in the church crypt, before succumbing to the heat generated by some 650,000 incendiary bombs that were dropped on the city. The temperature surrounding and inside the church eventually reached 1,000 degrees Celsius. The dome finally collapsed at 10 a.m. on 15 February. The pillars glowed bright red and exploded; the outer walls shattered and nearly 6,000 tons of stone plunged to earth, penetrating the massive floor as it fell.
The
altarAn altar is any structure upon which offerings such as sacrifices and votive offerings are made for religious purposes, or some other sacred place where ceremonies take place. Altars are usually found at a shrines, and they can be located in temples, churches and other places of worship...
, a
reliefA relief is a sculptured artwork where a modelled form is raised, or, in a sunken-relief, lowered, from a plane from which the main elements of the composition project . Reliefs are common throughout the world, for example on the walls of monumental buildings. The frieze in the classical Corinthian...
depiction of
JesusJesus of Nazareth —also known as Jesus Christ or occasionally Jesus the Christ—is the central figure of Christianity. Within most Christian denominations...
’ agony in the Garden of Gethsemane on the
Mount of OlivesThe Mount of Olives is a mountain ridge in east Jerusalem with three peaks running from north to south. The highest, at-Tur, rises to 818 meters . It is named for the olive groves that once covered its slopes...
by Johann Christian Feige, was only partially damaged during the bombing raid and fire that destroyed the church. The altar and the structure behind it, the
chancelIn architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse....
, were among the remnants left standing. Features of most of the figures were lopped off by falling debris and the fragments lay under the rubble.
The building vanished from Dresden's skyline, and the blackened stones would lie in wait in a pile in the center of the city for the next 45 years as
CommunistCommunism is a socioeconomic structure and political ideology that promotes the establishment of an egalitarian, classless, stateless society based on common ownership and control of the means of production and property in general. Karl Marx posited that communism would be the final stage in human...
rule enveloped what was now East Germany. Shortly after the end of World War II, residents of Dresden had already begun salvaging unique stone fragments from the Frauenkirche and numbering them for future use in reconstruction. Popular sentiment discouraged the authorities from clearing the ruins away to make a car park. In 1966, the remnants were officially declared a "memorial against war", and state-controlled comemorations were held there on the anniversaries of the destruction of Dresden.
In 1982, the ruins began to be the site of a
peace movementA peace movement is a social movement that seeks to achieve ideals such as the ending of a particular war , minimize inter-human violence in a particular place or type of situation, often linked to the goal of achieving world peace...
combined with peaceful protests against the East German regime. On the anniversary of the bombing, 400 Dresdeners came to the ruins in silence with flowers and candles, part of a growing East German civil rights movement. By 1989, the number of protesters in Dresden,
LeipzigLeipzig is, with a population of 515,459, the largest city in the federal state of Saxony, Germany.-Origins:Leipzig's name is derived from the Slavic word Lipsk, which means "settlement where the lime trees stand"....
and other parts of East Germany had increased to tens of thousands, and the
wall|-||-||-||-||}The Berlin Wall was a physical barrier erected by the German Democratic Republic completely encircling West Berlin, separating it from East Germany, including East Berlin. The longer inner German border demarcated the border between East and West Germany...
dividing East and West Germany toppled. This opened the way to the
reunification of GermanyGerman reunification is the process in which the German Democratic Republic joined the Federal Republic of Germany , and Berlin was united into a single city-state. The start of this process is commonly referred to by former citizens of the GDR as die Wende...
.
Promoting reconstruction and funding
There had already been intentions to rebuild the church during the last months of World War II. However, due to political circumstances in the
GDRThe German Democratic Republic was a Communist state that originated from the Soviet Zone of occupied Germany and the Soviet sector of occupied Berlin...
, the reconstruction later came to a halt. The heap of ruins was conserved as a war memorial within the inner city of Dresden, as a direct counterpart to the ruins of
Coventry CathedralCoventry Cathedral, also known as St Michael's Cathedral, is the seat of the Bishop of Coventry and the Diocese of Coventry, in Coventry, West Midlands, England. The current bishop is the Right Revd Dr Christopher Cocksworth....
, which was destroyed by German bombing in 1940 and also serves as a war memorial in
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. Because of the continuing decay of the ruins, Dresden decided in 1985 (after the
SemperoperThe Semperoper is the opera house of the Saxon State Opera Dresden and the concert hall of the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden in Dresden, Germany...
was finally finished) to rebuild the Frauenkirche after the completion of the reconstruction of the Dresden castle.
After the reunification of Germany, efforts were revived. In 1989, a 14-member group of enthusiasts headed by Ludwig Güttler, a noted Dresden musician, formed a Citizens' Initiative. From that group emerged a year later "The Society to Promote the Reconstruction of the Frauenkirche", which began an aggressive private fund-raising campaign. The organisation grew to over 5,000 members in Germany and 20 other countries. A string of German auxiliary groups were formed, and three promotional organisations were created abroad.
The project gathered momentum. As hundreds of architects, art historians and engineers sorted the thousands of stones, identifying and labeling each for reuse in the new structure, others worked to raise money.
Günter Blobel-Biography:Blobel was born in Waltersdorf in the Prussian Province of Lower Silesia. In January 1945 his family fled from native Silesia from the advancing Red Army. On their way to the West they passed through the beautiful old city of Dresden, which left deep impressions in the young boy...
, a German-born American, saw the original Frauenkirche as a boy when his refugee family took shelter in a town just outside of Dresden days before the city was bombed. In 1994, he became the founder and president of the nonprofit "Friends of Dresden, Inc.", a United States organization dedicated to supporting the reconstruction, restoration and preservation of Dresden's artistic and architectural legacy. In 1999, Blobel won the
Nobel Prize for medicineThe Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is awarded once a year by the Swedish Karolinska Institute. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895, awarded for outstanding contributions in Physics, Chemistry, Literature, Peace, and Physiology or Medicine...
and donated the entire amount of his award money (nearly US$1 million) to the organization for the restoration of Dresden, to the rebuilding of the Frauenkirche and the building of a new
synagogueA synagogue is a Jewish house of prayer....
. It was the single largest individual donation to the project.
In Britain, the Dresden Trust has the
Duke of KentPrince Edward, Duke of Kent is a member of the British Royal Family, a grandchild of George V. He has held the title of Duke of Kent since 1942....
as its royal patron and the
Bishop of CoventryThe Bishop of Coventry is the Ordinary of the England Diocese of Coventry in the Province of Canterbury. In the Middle Ages, the Bishop of Coventry was a title used by the bishops known today as the Bishop of Lichfield....
among its curators. Dr. Paul Oestreicher, a
canonA canon is a priest who is a member of certain bodies of the Christian clergy subject to an ecclesiastical rule ....
emeritus of
Coventry CathedralCoventry Cathedral, also known as St Michael's Cathedral, is the seat of the Bishop of Coventry and the Diocese of Coventry, in Coventry, West Midlands, England. The current bishop is the Right Revd Dr Christopher Cocksworth....
and a founder of the Dresden Trust, wrote
http://www.guardian.co.uk/germany/article/0,,1605134,00.html "The church is to Dresden what St. Paul's [Cathedral] is to London". Additional organizations include France's
Association Frauenkirche Paris, Switzerland's
Verein Schweizer Freunde der Frauenkirch, among others.
Rebuilding the Frauenkirche cost €180 million. Dresdner Bank financed more than half of the reconstruction costs via a "donor certificates campaign", collecting almost €70 million after 1995. The bank itself contributed more than seven million euros, including more than one million donated by its employees. Over the years, thousands of
watchA watch is a timepiece that is made to be worn on a person. It is usually a wristwatch, worn on the wrist with a strap or bracelet. In addition to the time, modern watches often display the day, date, month and year, and electronic watches may have many other functions.Most inexpensive and...
es containing tiny fragments of Frauenkirche stone were sold, as were specially printed medals. One sponsor raised nearly €2.3 million through symbolic sales of individual church stones.
Funds raised were turned over to the "Frauenkirche Foundation Dresden", the actual rebuilder, backed by the State of
SaxonyThe Free State of Saxony is a federal state of Germany, located in the southeastern part of present-day Germany. It is the tenth-largest German state in area and the sixth largest in population , of Germany's sixteen states.Long in the heart of German-speaking Europe, Saxony became one of the new...
, the City of Dresden and the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Saxony.
Reconstruction
Using original plans used by builder Georg Bähr in the 1720s, reconstruction finally began in January 1993 under the direction of church architect and engineer Eberhard Burger. The foundation stone was laid in 1994, the
cryptIn architecture, a crypt is a stone chamber or vault beneath the floor of a church usually used as a chapel or burial vault possibly containing sarcophagi, coffins or relics....
was completed in 1996 and the inner
cupolaIn architecture, a cupola is a small, most-often dome-like structure, on top of a building. Often used to provide a lookout or to admit light and air, it usually crowns a larger roof or dome. The word derives, via Italian, from the lower Latin cupula small cup indicating a vault resembling an...
in 2000.
As far as possible, the church – except for its dome – was rebuilt using original material and plans, with the help of modern technology. The heap of rubble was documented and carried off stone by stone. The approximate original position of each stone could be determined from its position in the heap. Every usable piece was measured and catalogued. A computer imaging program that could move the stones three-dimensionally around the screen in various configurations was used to help architects find where the original stones sat and how they fit together.
Of the millions of stones used in the rebuilding, more than 8,500 original stones were salvaged from the original church and approximately 3,800 reused in the reconstruction. As the older stones are covered with a darker
patinaPatina is a film on the surface of bronze or similar metals ; a sheen on wooden furniture produced by age, wear, and polishing; or any such acquired change of a surface through age and exposure...
, due to fire damage and weathering, the difference between old and new stones will be clearly visible for a number of years after reconstruction.
Two thousand pieces of the original altar were cleaned and incorporated into the new structure.
The builders relied on thousands of old photographs, memories of worshippers and church officials and crumbling old purchase orders detailing the quality of the mortar or pigments of the paint (as in the 18th century, copious quantities of eggs were used to make the color that provides the interior its almost luminescent glow).
When it came time to duplicate the oak doors of the entrance, the builders had only vague descriptions of the detailed carving. Because people (especially wedding parties) often posed for photos outside the church doors, they issued an appeal for old photographs and the response—which included entire wedding albums—allowed artisans to recreate the original doors.
The new gilded orb and
crossThe Christian cross is the best-known religious symbol of Christianity. It is a representation of the instrument of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. It is related to the crucifix and to the more general family of cross symbols...
on top of the dome was forged by Grant Macdonald Silversmiths in
London[]London is the capital of England and the United Kingdom. It has been a major settlement for two millennia, and the history of London goes back to its founding by the Romans, when it was named Londinium. London's core, the ancient City of London, the 'square mile', retains its medieval boundaries...
using the original 18th-century techniques as much as possible. It was constructed by Alan Smith, a British goldsmith from London whose father, Frank, was a member of one of the aircrews who took part in the bombing of Dresden. Before travelling to Dresden, the cross was exhibited for five years in churches across the United Kingdom including
Coventry CathedralCoventry Cathedral, also known as St Michael's Cathedral, is the seat of the Bishop of Coventry and the Diocese of Coventry, in Coventry, West Midlands, England. The current bishop is the Right Revd Dr Christopher Cocksworth....
,
Liverpool CathedralLiverpool Cathedral is the Anglican cathedral of Liverpool, England, built on St James' Mount near the centre of the city: it is the seat of the Anglican Bishop of Liverpool. Its official name is the Cathedral Church of Christ in Liverpool but it is dedicated to Christ and the Blessed Virgin...
, St Giles Cathedral in
EdinburghEdinburgh is the capital city of Scotland. It is the second largest Scottish city, after Glasgow, and the seventh-most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council is one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas....
and
St Paul's CathedralSt Paul's Cathedral is the Anglican cathedral on Ludgate Hill in the City of London and the seat of the Bishop of London. The present building dates from the 17th century and is generally reckoned to be London's fifth St Paul's Cathedral, not counting every major medieval reconstruction as a new...
in London. In February 2000, the cross was ceremonially handed over by
The Duke of KentPrince Edward, Duke of Kent is a member of the British Royal Family, a grandchild of George V. He has held the title of Duke of Kent since 1942....
, to be placed on the top of the dome a few days after the 60th commemoration of
D-DayD-Day is a term often used in military parlance to denote the day on which a combat attack or operation is to be initiated. "D-Day" often represents a variable, designating the day upon which some significant event will occur or has occurred; see Military designation of days and hours for similar...
on 22 June, 2004. The external structure of the Frauenkirche was completed. For the first time since the last war, the completed dome and its gilded cross grace Dresden's skyline as in centuries prior. The cross that once topped the dome, now twisted and charred, stands to the right of the new altar.
Seven new bells were cast for the church. They rang for the first time for the
PentecostPentecost is one of the prominent feasts in the Christian liturgical year. The feast is also called Whitsun, Whitsunday, Whit Sunday, and Whitsuntide, especially in the United Kingdom. Pentecost is celebrated seven weeks after Easter Sunday, hence its name...
celebration in 2003.
It was decided not to reproduce a
replicaA replica is a copy that is relatively indistinguishable from the original. Replicas are often used for historical purposes, such as being placed in a museum. Sometimes the original never existed. For example, Difference Engine No...
of the Silbermann organ. The decision resulted in the Dresden organ dispute ("Dresdner Orgelstreit"). A 4,873 pipe organ was built by Daniel Kern of Strasbourg, France, and completed in April 2005. The Kern organ contains all the stops which were on the stoplist of the Silbermann organ and tries to reconstruct them. Additional stops also are included, especially a fourth swell manual in the symphonic 19th century style which is apt for the organ literature composed after the baroque period.
A bronze statue of reformer and theologian
Martin LutherMartin Luther changed the course of Western civilization by initiating the Protestant Reformation. As a priest and theology professor, he confronted indulgence salesmen with his The Ninety-Five Theses in 1517. Luther strongly disputed their claim that freedom from God's punishment of sin could...
, which survived the bombings, has been restored and again stands in front of the church. It is the work of sculptor
Adolf von DonndorfAdolf von Donndorf was a German sculptor.- Life :Adolf Donndorf was born in Weimar, the son of a cabinet-maker.Starting in 1853 he was a student of Ernst Rietschel in Dresden...
from 1885.
The intensive efforts to rebuild this world famous landmark were completed in 2005, one year earlier than originally planned, and in time for the 800-year anniversary of the city of Dresden in 2006. The church was reconsecrated with a festive service one day before
Reformation DayReformation Day is a religious holiday celebrated on October 31 in remembrance of the Reformation, particularly by Lutheran and some Reformed church communities...
. The rebuilt church is a monument reminding people of its history and a symbol of hope and reconciliation.
There are two devotional services every day and two liturgies every Sunday. From October 2005 through the year 2010, there is an exhibition on the history and reconstruction of the Frauenkirche at the Stadtmuseum (City Museum) in Dresden's Alten Landhaus.
Since the re-opening
Since re-opening, the Frauenkirche has been a hugely popular tourist destination in Dresden. In the first three years after the re-opening, seven million people have visited the church. The project has inspired other revitalization projects throughout Europe. Christian religious services are again available. In 2009 the church was visited by
Barack ObamaBarack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office, as well as the first president born in Hawaii...
after a meeting with
Angela Merkel' is the current Chancellor of Germany. Merkel, elected to the German Parliament from Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, has been the chairwoman of the Christian Democratic Union since 10 April 2000, and Chairwoman of the CDU-CSU parliamentary party group from 2002 to 2005...
in the
Grünes GewölbeThe Grünes Gewölbe in Dresden, Germany is a museum that contains the largest collection of treasures in Europe. It is a part of the Dresden castle. It was founded by August der Starke in 1723. It features a unique and rich variety of exhibits from the period of baroque to classicism. The name...
.
Criticisms of reconstruction methods
The rebuilding of the church was not without criticism.
Though the original fire-damaged stones of the old building were reused, they were placed, to a large extent, arbitrarily around the building with the help of a computer program. This raised certain interesting philosophical questions about the status of this building and its embedded memory. Since this building was not rebuilt using period technology, but instead with
CATIACATIA is a multi-platform CAD/CAM/CAE commercial software suite developed by the French company Dassault Systemes and marketed worldwide by IBM...
, a sophisticated computer modelling tool, questions have been raised about what it means actually to "reconstruct" old buildings.
External links