Architectural journey through time
Saturday, 7 July 2007
Janet Schayan
Hildesheim, Goslar, Quedlinburg - ever heard of them? Admittedly the three cities are in the heart of Germany, but not exactly on the usual tourist trails, especially for holidaymakers from abroad. All three have something in common: their buildings, which date from the Middle Ages, are very much a part of architectural history and they are among the 32 UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Germany. Quedlinburg, for example, a former imperial palace, is an important stop today on the so-called Romantic Route and is also one of Germany's most outstanding monumental zones given that the whole city is listed as a prime example of a well preserved medieval town, with its 1,300 half-timber buildings covering a period of eight centuries and its historical ground plan. Goslar in the Harz region also has more than 1,000 years of history to its name and in the Middle Ages it was a power centre. And in Hildesheim you will find St. Michael's, one of the most beautiful early Romanesque churches in Germany and a major work of medieval architecture.
Architecture is a key discipline in the cultural history of humankind, perhaps even its main point of departure. How much built space can tell us about the mental attitude of an epoch, its people! How much different it feels in the squat gloomy space of a Romanesque church than in the light-flooded loftiness of a Gothic cathedral! The highly ornate pure Rococo of the Wieskirche in Upper Bavaria is cheerful and sensuous. The Bauhaus sites in Dessau and Weimar, which reflect the revolutionary ideas about design and architecture in the early 20th century are sober, clear and rigorous by contrast. An architectural journey through Germany is a journey through both history and art history and leads back through the centuries to the Romans in Trier or Xanten, for example. In order to get some leads in this diversity it might be advisable to arrange a tour of the German World Heritage Sites, after all, most of them are historical architectural monuments.
You could approach this World Heritage journey alphabetically, starting with A as in Aachen--with Aachen Cathedral, the palace chapel of Emperor Charlemagne, which was the first German cultural monument to be included on the UNESCO World Heritage list in 1978. In this case the journey would take a zigzag course via D as in Dresden, M as in Maulbronn and R as in Regensburg, ending with W as in Wurzburg - at the residence of the prince-bishop and one of the country's most cohesive and unusual Baroque castles. The phenomenal ceiling painting above the vast staircase is in itself worth a visit: a painstaking work lasting years by the Venetian artist Giovanni Battista Tiepolo and his sons.
On the other hand, who has ever planned a trip following the alphabet? On the Internet, at www.unesco-welterbe.de, UNESCO Welterbestatten Deutsch land e.V. proposes eight different routes: for example, one through northern Germany from Bremen via Lubeck and Wismar to Stralsund, a tour that combines the cultural heritage of the Hanseatic cities with the Romanticism of the classical Baltic Sea spas of the turn of the last century. In the far West, a tour might begin in Trier, with the Roman Porta Nigra, baths and amphitheatre. From here the path could take you south into the Saarland, to the Iron Cathedral or Volkinger Ironworks, industrial monument that stands for the history of a century of labour and steel.
Needless to say, the proposed route for eastern Germany revolves around Berlin, the capital city and cultural metropolis-here the Museum Island is part of the world cultural heritage. For architecture fans, however, the Gendarmenmarkt is also a must. It is one of the most beautiful squares in Europe with a concert hall building, designed by Karl Friedrich Schinkel; pure classicism. If you travel with the small number of kilometres on to Potsdam, former residence of the Prussian kings, there is of course an ensemble of palaces and gardens to visit. Alongside the main attraction of Sanssouci Palace, by no means should you miss Charlottenhof Palace, located a bit out of the way in the large park. This is a classicist jewel (also by Schinkel) that looks almost modestly bourgeois beside the autocratic state buildings. Here again, as in a history book, we can read about the turn of an era in the architecture. The trip could proceed along picturesque tree-lined avenues to Wittenberg and Eisleben, to the Luther memorial sites. In between, it is worth stopping in Dessau to see the Bauhaus building designed by Walter Gropius and, not far from it, the picturesque-sleepy Garden Realm of Dessau-Worlitz, a cultural landscape with English parks, lakes, castles and temples in the Greek style.
No matter how beautiful and varied our trip among the World Heritage Sites, we would, of course, have missed much that is also part of an architectural tour: for example, the ornate Art Nouveau villas on the Mathildenhohe in Darmstadt, or some of the current architectural highlights, such as Potsdamer Platz in Berlin with its buildings by star architects like Renzo Piano and Meinhard von Gerkan. We would also not have seen the Zollhof in Dosseldorf built in the unmistakably bold formal idiom of Frank O Gehry, nor the futuristic Phaeno Museum in Wolfsburg designed by woman architect Zaha Hadid, which seems to defy the laws of statics. But one trip is simply not enough for all that.
— Deutschland
Hildesheim, Goslar, Quedlinburg - ever heard of them? Admittedly the three cities are in the heart of Germany, but not exactly on the usual tourist trails, especially for holidaymakers from abroad. All three have something in common: their buildings, which date from the Middle Ages, are very much a part of architectural history and they are among the 32 UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Germany. Quedlinburg, for example, a former imperial palace, is an important stop today on the so-called Romantic Route and is also one of Germany's most outstanding monumental zones given that the whole city is listed as a prime example of a well preserved medieval town, with its 1,300 half-timber buildings covering a period of eight centuries and its historical ground plan. Goslar in the Harz region also has more than 1,000 years of history to its name and in the Middle Ages it was a power centre. And in Hildesheim you will find St. Michael's, one of the most beautiful early Romanesque churches in Germany and a major work of medieval architecture.
Architecture is a key discipline in the cultural history of humankind, perhaps even its main point of departure. How much built space can tell us about the mental attitude of an epoch, its people! How much different it feels in the squat gloomy space of a Romanesque church than in the light-flooded loftiness of a Gothic cathedral! The highly ornate pure Rococo of the Wieskirche in Upper Bavaria is cheerful and sensuous. The Bauhaus sites in Dessau and Weimar, which reflect the revolutionary ideas about design and architecture in the early 20th century are sober, clear and rigorous by contrast. An architectural journey through Germany is a journey through both history and art history and leads back through the centuries to the Romans in Trier or Xanten, for example. In order to get some leads in this diversity it might be advisable to arrange a tour of the German World Heritage Sites, after all, most of them are historical architectural monuments.
You could approach this World Heritage journey alphabetically, starting with A as in Aachen--with Aachen Cathedral, the palace chapel of Emperor Charlemagne, which was the first German cultural monument to be included on the UNESCO World Heritage list in 1978. In this case the journey would take a zigzag course via D as in Dresden, M as in Maulbronn and R as in Regensburg, ending with W as in Wurzburg - at the residence of the prince-bishop and one of the country's most cohesive and unusual Baroque castles. The phenomenal ceiling painting above the vast staircase is in itself worth a visit: a painstaking work lasting years by the Venetian artist Giovanni Battista Tiepolo and his sons.
On the other hand, who has ever planned a trip following the alphabet? On the Internet, at www.unesco-welterbe.de, UNESCO Welterbestatten Deutsch land e.V. proposes eight different routes: for example, one through northern Germany from Bremen via Lubeck and Wismar to Stralsund, a tour that combines the cultural heritage of the Hanseatic cities with the Romanticism of the classical Baltic Sea spas of the turn of the last century. In the far West, a tour might begin in Trier, with the Roman Porta Nigra, baths and amphitheatre. From here the path could take you south into the Saarland, to the Iron Cathedral or Volkinger Ironworks, industrial monument that stands for the history of a century of labour and steel.
Needless to say, the proposed route for eastern Germany revolves around Berlin, the capital city and cultural metropolis-here the Museum Island is part of the world cultural heritage. For architecture fans, however, the Gendarmenmarkt is also a must. It is one of the most beautiful squares in Europe with a concert hall building, designed by Karl Friedrich Schinkel; pure classicism. If you travel with the small number of kilometres on to Potsdam, former residence of the Prussian kings, there is of course an ensemble of palaces and gardens to visit. Alongside the main attraction of Sanssouci Palace, by no means should you miss Charlottenhof Palace, located a bit out of the way in the large park. This is a classicist jewel (also by Schinkel) that looks almost modestly bourgeois beside the autocratic state buildings. Here again, as in a history book, we can read about the turn of an era in the architecture. The trip could proceed along picturesque tree-lined avenues to Wittenberg and Eisleben, to the Luther memorial sites. In between, it is worth stopping in Dessau to see the Bauhaus building designed by Walter Gropius and, not far from it, the picturesque-sleepy Garden Realm of Dessau-Worlitz, a cultural landscape with English parks, lakes, castles and temples in the Greek style.
No matter how beautiful and varied our trip among the World Heritage Sites, we would, of course, have missed much that is also part of an architectural tour: for example, the ornate Art Nouveau villas on the Mathildenhohe in Darmstadt, or some of the current architectural highlights, such as Potsdamer Platz in Berlin with its buildings by star architects like Renzo Piano and Meinhard von Gerkan. We would also not have seen the Zollhof in Dosseldorf built in the unmistakably bold formal idiom of Frank O Gehry, nor the futuristic Phaeno Museum in Wolfsburg designed by woman architect Zaha Hadid, which seems to defy the laws of statics. But one trip is simply not enough for all that.
— Deutschland