the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, Berlin

DW Travel 在 Gedächtniskirche 。

29分鐘 · 德國柏林 · 

Good morning from Berlin!
Here's a picture from inside the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church. The church on Kurfürstendamm is one of the city's landmarks.

Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church
Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche
Ruin of the imperial church, not rebuilt as a reminder of World War II - the modern belfry was added in 1963
Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church Location within Berlin
52°30′18″N 13°20′06″ECoordinates: 52°30′18″N 13°20′06″E
Location	Breitscheidplatz, Berlin, Germany
Denomination	Evangelical Church in Berlin, Brandenburg and Silesian Upper Lusatia
Website	gedaechtniskirche-berlin.de
Architecture
Architect(s)	Franz Schwechten (original) Egon Eiermann (current)
Style	Neo-Romanesque (original) Modernist (current)
Years built	1891–1906 (original) 1959–1963 (current)

Interior of the new church

Exterior of the new church

Mosaic in Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church

The foundation stone was laid on 22 March 1891, which was Wilhelm I's birthday.^[2] The church was dedicated on 1 September 1895,^[2] the eve of the Day of Sedan. At that time, the entrance hall in the lower section had not yet been completed; that part of the church was not opened and consecrated until 22 February 1906.^[3] Construction costs mounted to 6.8 million gold mark, raised primarily through donations. The church design, quite unfamiliar in the Brandenburg region, inspired several architectural projects in the surrounding area, like the Romanisches Café building, also designed by Schwechten.

In World War II, on the night of 23 November 1943, the church was extensively damaged in an air raid.^[1] Yet it was by no means beyond repair. A remnant of the spire and much of the entrance hall survived intact, as did the altar and the baptistry.^[4] After the war, in 1947, the curatorium of the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche foundation (Stiftung) decided in favor of rebuilding the church, but the manner in which this should be done was contentiously debated until the late 1950s.^[5] In a two-phased design competition in 1956, the question of whether the secured remnant of the spire should be torn down or preserved was left open.^[5] The winner of the competition, architect Egon Eiermann, initially proposed, in both his submissions, for the remnant of the old spire to be torn down, in favor of a completely new construction.^[5] But that plan provoked a public outcry in which the ruined tower was characterized as the "heart of Berlin"; as a result Eiermann revised the design to preserve the tower.^[5] He had most of the remaining structure pulled down, in order to build the modern church that now occupies most of the site.