My favorite building

Last Saturday I wandered into the city to meet a friend. She slept late so I took the opportunity to find out about a building I'd always admired from the S bahn line. Looked like a church, but not like any church I'd seen recently. It is, in fact, a church (or a piece of one). This is what it looked like after the war. Since then, they've torn down the majority of the building and all that remains is the front hallway that contains the large steeple. They also made a conscious choice to keep things minimalistic. The stained glass windows were bombed out at some point, and were never replaced. In fact, except on the ground floor, there are no windows at all. Birds fly through the space that once contained the rose window.

Here is a more current image of the building. Obviously not taken by me, but it gives a good image of the whole thing.

























I don't know much about its history except that it was constructed for Kaiser Wilhelm I in 1891 and was bombed in 1943. I think what I love about it is perhaps a bit cliche and embarrassing. None the less, for me it represents the beauty in the rubble. I find it not only striking, but beautiful. An image of redemption maybe? My absolute favorite post card is one that displays a church service that took place inside the building. An "open air service", on Pentecost, in 1953. Taken from high above the altar, at the back of the church, one sees hundreds of people in their Sunday best. They're focussed on the priest standing before the altar. The altar is framed by an enormous archway. And above it, the open sky.