"...like something out of gotham city or... lord of the rings!" is a fair newbie's reaction to the gigantic cathedral in the German city of Cologne. Nearly 160 metres high, spanning a length of 145 metres and breadth of 86, the Kölner Dom is the spiritual centre of Catholic Rheinland (and indeed of Gothic Europe), harking back to the chivalric days when Teutonic knights and the prelate of Cologne tugged the powercords of the Holy Roman Empire. 600 years in the making, construction began in the 13th century and the edifice, which miraculously survived the wholesale bombing of Cologne by Allied Lancasters, now towers above the heart of the city, offering its vast surrounding square as a platform for all peaceful faiths, persuasions and trades to proclaim their causes.
Beneath its sepulchral bowels rests an even more ancient church, and deeper still resides the remains of a temple dedicated to Mercury, the speedy Roman god of travellers and trade. Less illustrious is the underground carpark that shares the plot with these ghosts of altars past, where Daimlers and Datsuns may back up against a wall enshrined with Latin benedictions.
Today, pilgrims from Tokyo to Taipei continue to converge by the banks of the Rhein, where one's first step from the steel caverns of the Hauptbahnhof yields a sight that that stretches the neck and strains the eye in disbelief at the sheer space and sky that a monolith of scarred stone and screaming spires can consume in its vertical quest for the celestial spheres. Have you no 35 mm lens or less, spare the effort to capture this black mountain in its entirety and buy a postcard instead. Or a picture book at the souvenir counters and bookshops that dot the cobbled Altstadt in its far-reaching shadow. And don't forget that vial of Eau de Cologne to ward off the stench of lingering centuries, whose persistent intrusion into modern metropoles is an anomaly to those who have forgotten the lessons of history and are doomed to an eternity of solitude with no second chance on earth.
Side view of Dom with mrs budak's head for comparison.
that was really informative! thanks.
sorry for having to put up with the uninitiated's crass commentary.
I didn't have the good fortunes to visit much of the Dom at all.
But I was informed by a passing commentary that the Dom was built to rival the vatican and to attempt to move the religious centre to Koln instead.
Hope I was not misinformed.
Posted by: hou zi | 01 January 2005 at 05:23 AM
Gothic is good.
Posted by: Agagooga | 03 January 2005 at 09:24 PM