Dresden has her back - and she is a beauty!

[ZeeGerman]

Sixty years after her destruction on Feb. 13th 1945, the landmark of Dresden has risen from its ruins.
This has been made possible by donations from enthusiasts all over the world.


http://www.spiegel.de/img/0,1020,533796,00.jpg
February 1945


http://www.spiegel.de/img/0,1020,534538,00.jpg http://www.spiegel.de/img/0,1020,485030,00.jpg
October 2005



http://www.spiegel.de/img/0,1020,533810,00.jpg http://www.spiegel.de/img/0,1020,485263,00.jpg

The new church inside - with the dome





More info at http://www.frauenkirche-dresden.de/
(the english site is a bit buggy though as it often links to pages in german)


My sister is a stonemason and - like many others - she has forged one of the stones near the main gate.

Can't say I'm not slightly proud!

Zee

[Manny]

Wow. Nice. Very, very nice. Atheists need churches. We can call 'em meeting halls or skeptical eductation centers or whatever, but they should have high soaring spaces and great acoustics and flying buttresses and gargoyles and the whole thing.

[LuxFerum]

pretty cool

[Jocko]

Wow. Nice. Very, very nice. Atheists need churches. We can call 'em meeting halls or skeptical eductation centers or whatever, but they should have high soaring spaces and great acoustics and flying buttresses and gargoyles and the whole thing.


Sorry, you're just too damned rational. Churches (impressive ones, anyway) are a spectacular waste of space, money and practical utility. Same as beautiful old cemeteries.

It takes an irrational belief to drive such an irrational construction (and pay for it, no less)... which is why I enjoy being a bit irrational that way.

Completely sane people are SO unhappy, ever notice that? ;)

[Luke T.]

Sixty years after her destruction on Feb. 13th 1945, the landmark of Dresden has risen from its ruins.

Listen: Billy Pilgrim has become unstuck in time.

[The Central Scrutinizer]

http://www.spiegel.de/img/0,1020,534538,00.jpg http://www.spiegel.de/img/0,1020,485030,00.jpg
October 2005



http://www.spiegel.de/img/0,1020,533810,00.jpg http://www.spiegel.de/img/0,1020,485263,00.jpg





A beautiful building and a great example of Baroque architecture. If I get over to Germany next summer (World Cup), I'll go see it.

[American]

I'm glad those buildings are all better. What a loss!

[Zep]

Absolutely first class! Let's hope it never falls down again, for any reason.

Even atheists can appreciate the architectural beauty in this.

[Just thinking]

Sixty years after her destruction on Feb. 13th 1945, the landmark of Dresden has risen from its ruins. This has been made possible by donations from enthusiasts all over the world.

My sister is a stonemason and - like many others - she has forged one of the stones near the main gate.

Can't say I'm not slightly proud!

Zee

And you should be ... beautiful.

[peptoabysmal]

That is absolutely stunning.

[blakehaydn]

Sorry, you're just too damned rational. Churches (impressive ones, anyway) are a spectacular waste of space, money and practical utility. Same as beautiful old cemeteries.

It takes an irrational belief to drive such an irrational construction (and pay for it, no less)... which is why I enjoy being a bit irrational that way.

Completely sane people are SO unhappy, ever notice that? ;)

Actually, it would be scientifical to have beautiful gardens and buildings around. It is psychologically healthy. What these buildings previously stould for (organized religion) is their only irrational meaning.

[blakehaydn]

Sixty years after her destruction on Feb. 13th 1945, the landmark of Dresden has risen from its ruins.
This has been made possible by donations from enthusiasts all over the world.

You should post some fotos of the church before '45.

[Kopji]

Ruins send a message that is sometimes lost in reconstruction, but I can certainly understand the love of the city for this place. Congrats on a spectacular effort.

May be a better English language link:
http://www.intbau.org/Dresden.htm

It has a postcard of the building from 1903.

[richardm]

Beautiful job! It's nice to see that there are still craftsmen around who can build like that.

[kimiko]

:clap:

[Ed]

Excellent, another beautiful European Church for me to pillage.

[Tony]

Have they been working to rebuild it since 1945 or did they start rebuilding it a few years ago?

[Chaos]

Excellent, another beautiful European Church for me to pillage.

Channeling Claus Larsen´s humor today, huh?

[Mycroft]

Excellent, another beautiful European Church for me to pillage.

You know how when you were a kid there was always that other kid who wanted to take that model something you spent hours and hours building and either shoot it with a BB gun or blow it up with firecrackers?

[ZeeGerman]

Have they been working to rebuild it since 1945 or did they start rebuilding it a few years ago?

From the link Kopji provided
In the early 1990s a group of Dresdeners launched an international appeal for help with the reconstruction of the Frauenkirche. By 1994 they had cleared the pile of rubble, laying out as many stones as possible (about 35% of the material needed) for re-use. The appeal met with broad support within Germany and from the United Kingdom, the United States, France and elsewhere. The British Dresden Trust raised money to finance a window and to replace the golden Orb and Cross which was placed on top of the dome in 2004.

[Tony]

From the link Kopji provided

Thanks Zee, but I don't get it. Why did Germany and Dresdeners (is that what they're called?) let it remain a pile of rubble for almost 50 years?

edit: Ohh I see why:

Dresden, once famous as an elegant Baroque city, is today better known for the fire bombing of 13-14 February 1945 which claimed tens of thousands of lives, an event described in a number of books, notably Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse 5, Alexander McKee's The Devil's Tinderbox and Clayton and Russell's Dresden: A City Reborn. After the war a few of the city's major Baroque monuments were rebuilt by the DDR government, including the famous Zwinger Palace and the Opera House. But the Frauenkirche in the Neumarkt (right, in a view of 1760), the largest Protestant Baroque church in Europe, was left in ruins. Local protests succeeded in preventing the removal of the remains under the DDR government of 1946-89.

So the east German DDR just neglected to rebuild. Did the DDR just not want to rebuild a church?

[Jon_in_london]

What a gorgeous building... reminds us of the crass wastefulness of war.

[luchog]

So the east German DDR just neglected to rebuild. Did the DDR just not want to rebuild a church?
The DDR was such an economic mess, it could barely find the funds to rebuild an outhouse. But I seriously doubt that such a staunchly communist government would have rebuilt the church even had they had the funds. They would probably have just bulldozed it completely and built a new People's Educational Center.

[H3LL]

Very pretty.

What does god think of it?
Didn't he like the old one?
Let's hope he likes this one.


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