2/05/2009

Cologne Cathedral

We went to Cologne yesterday, to see several exhibitions, but mainly to see the Richter Windows in the Cologne Cathedral. The Cathedral is Cologne’s most famous landmark, a World Heritage Site, one of the world’s largest and oldest churches. Very, very impressive, if you stand before it and have a look upwards is almost overwhelming.

In August 2007 the cathedral received a new stained glass window to replace the original window destroyed in World War II. The window was created by one of the most famous German painters, Gerhard Richter. He’s also among the 10 most expensive living artists. In February 2008, for example, the „Candle“ which was used for the cover of the album „Daydream Nation“ (Sonic Youth) was sold for £7.1m at Sotheby’s.

The window is 20 m tall and consists of 11,500 handblown glass squares resembling pixels in 72 different colours which were chosen to match the colours in the other stained glass windows in the cathedral.

It’s a modern window, of course, but it blends in beautifully with the old windows and the surroundings. The effects of the light coming in through the pixels was beautiful even if there was a rainy day outside. Just magic.

Here you ou can take a a virtual tour in the cathedral.

Here’s Gerhard Richter’s official page.

2 comments:

Lydia said...

O, Wow! That is absolutely breathtaking and I envy your visit there. I toured some of the other windows at the virtual tour and was really astonished at some of the ages (1260! 1300!). What did they do with the space where this new window is from the time it was blown away in the war to when it was completed in 2007? Maybe the site told that but I didn't have the question in my mind then :)

francessa said...

Yes, all of the Cathedral is absolutely stunning!

The Richter window was just a normal glass window for decades.

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