Monday around Berlin

Firstly, I am adding Mr. Karl Pujak and Dr. Brian Etheridge as blog authors, so there will me more diversity of style and content in upcoming posts.

So, I am going to share some of today's highlights, with others appearing from my coauthors and the students.

MARIENKIRCHE:  (seen below)
One of the oldest churches in the city, we started there first due to its proximity to the train station.  We had a discussion of styles represented, and proceeded to go around to the front and enter.  Unfortunately, the church is closed starting today for repairs.  We will have to come back in a week or so.

NIKOLAIKIRCHE:
So we next walked a bit over to the area where Berlin was founded, at the easiest crossing of the Spree, and the founding church of the city, the Nikolaikirche.  We sat at the river crossing, and Dr. Etheridge gave an open-air lecture on the general historical context and founding of Berlin.

Then over to the Kirche:

After lunch, we walked to our third church of the day, the Friedrichwerder Church by Karl Schinkel.  Schinkel is one of Germany's most noted architects, still revered and analyzed today.  We will see several of his buildings on this study trip, this being the first, circa 1824-1830.

Nex

Next down to St. Hedwig's, on Bebelsplatz:

And a historic photo of what it looked like in 1898.  It, like most things in Berlin, was damaged in WWII, and the dome has been replaced, no longer having the vertical "tower" on top.  The interior is quite silencing, with a dome breadth that I could not capture with my camera.  The eyes are still better than any camera when it comes to total experience.


We also visited the Concert House originally designed by Karl Schinkel.  This was impressive for its size, although it turns out that virtually the entire building was destroyed in the war, and this is a rebuild from the 1980's that tried to be faithful, but also took liberties with where certain spaces were, and the various ornamentation was changed around in some spaces.  As with many of the historic buildings we have and will see, the question of authenticity, historical accuracy, and how is best to preserve and honor the past has been coming up.  No answers, but a good question of ethics and sensibility for the architecture and history students.