View allAll Photos Tagged Simplify
This one for sure looks better on B l a c k M a g i c
Todays challenge for the daily shoot was Experiment in the digital darkroom today. Make a photo and post-process it any way you like to unleash your creativity.
So it was a nice day here and we had some things we had to do, but by about 2:30 we were done so decided to jump in the car and go somewhere we hadnt been before and ended up in Snug Harbor Park on Staten Island a lovely quaint little park which we enjoyed a leisurely stroll around, and this is one of the shots I got today
This shot I played around with in Topaz Simplify, the shot in the first comment is how I would normally have done this shot
No plastic wrap effect, no PS comic book filter, and no b&w conversion like yesterdays post. This is what I saw through my camera and I like the tones, texture and shadows on this Pine tree.
Earlier guns still have the pivot screw and locking screw on the cocking lever pivot......this was simplified to a pin, secured by the loading tap plate, on later versions.......Also the quality of wood used for the stock was not as good as the years went by.
© Saira Bhatti
This is what these cherry blossoms induced in my thoughts while walking among them.....“As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness.” ~ Henry David Thoreau #Canon #Photography
A Distinct face @ the Sindur Khela Celebration of Durga Puja'08 At the Baghbajar Puja Pandal.
Durga puja is celebrated in the autumn months of September/October. According to the Hindu solar calendar, it falls on the first nine days of the month of Ashvin. It is the time of the year when the weather is at its moderate best giving the air a festive touch. Durga puja is the most favorite festival of the people of eastern India, especially the people of West Bengal. This festival is celebrated all over India, though with differing rituals, for nine days. It is also called Navratri in some parts of the country.
The last day coincides with Dussehra. Idols are taken away in large processions for immersion in water. "Sindur Khela" (Vermillion game) is a major event of Dashami. First, the married women greet the Mahadevi for one last time, accompanied by rituals. They do aarati, but ready-to-chew paan-leaves in the hands of the goddess, put sweets on the lips of the idol, wipe out eyes as one does to wipe off the tears when leaving a loving place. This event is called "Durga Baran". They apply vermilion to the Goddess's head and to each other and greet each other with sweets.
Before "Ma" leaves, married women of all age groups visit the nearby pandal to take part in an emotional ritual where vermilion (sindhoor khela), is applied to the parting of each other's hair. The loha (the metal and gold bracelet given to the bride by the mother-in-law) and pala/sannbha (the red and white bangles worn by many married Bengali women) are also touched up. Sindhoor is applied by the women and the priest on the forehead of the goddess. A mother-in-law gives an iron bangle interlaced with gold or silver to a new bride as the first gift, a token of suhag, which the daughter-in-law wears all her life. During Durga puja, when idols are being taken away for immersion, sindoor is taken from in front of the idols and applied to the parting in the hair by married women. What is left on the fingers is applied to this iron and gold (silver) bangle, and is known as touching the loha. The ritual of applying sindoor can also take place at home when Bijoya Dashami is celebrated with family members.
INCLUDES:
FUTURAMA: VOLUME 8:
Year Released: 2013
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
AUDIO:
- English (DTS-HD 5.1)
SUBTITLES:
English SDH, Spanish, French
THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG:
Year Released: 2009
Studio: Disney
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
AUDIO & SUBTITLES:
- English (DTS-HD 5.1)
- French (Canadian) (Dolby 5.1)
- Spanish (Dolby 5.1)
- Portuguese (Brazilian) (Dolby 5.1)
FORREST GUMP 4K (25th Anniversary Edition):
Year Released: 1994
Studio: Paramount
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 SCOPE
AUDIO (REGULAR & 4K BLU-RAY):
- English (Dolby Atmos)
- English (Dolby 5.1)
- German (Dolby 5.1)
- Castilian Spanish (Dolby 5.1)
- Spanish (Dolby 5.1)
- French (Dolby 5.1)
- Italian (Dolby 5.1)
- Japanese (Dolby 2.0)
- Portuguese (Brazilian) (Dolby 2.0)
SUBTITLES (REGULAR BLU-RAY):
English SDH, Cantonese Chinese, Danish, German, Castilian Spanish, Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, Dutch, Norwegian, Portuguese (Brazilian), Finnish, Swedish
SUBTITLES (4K BLU-RAY):
English SDH, Danish, German, Castilian Spanish, Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese, Dutch, Norwegian, Portuguese (Brazilian), Finnish, Swedish
THE KARATE KID 4K (35th Anniversary Edition):
Year Released: 1984
Studio: Sony (Columbia)
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
AUDIO (REGULAR BLU-RAY):
- English (DTS-HD 5.1)
- French (DTS-HD 5.1)
- Spanish (Dolby 5.1)
- Portuguese (DTS-HD 5.1)
AUDIO (4K BLU-RAY):
- English (Dolby Atmos)
- English (DTS-HD 5.1)
- English (DTS-HD Stereo)
- Czech (Dolby 5.1)
- French (Dolby 5.1)
- German (Dolby 5.1)
- Hindi (Mono)
- Hungarian (Dolby 5.1)
- Italian (Dolby 5.1)
- Japanese (Dolby 5.1)
- Korean (Dolby Surround)
- Polish (Voiceover) (Dolby 5.1)
- Portuguese (Dolby 5.1)
- Castilian Spanish (Dolby 5.1)
- Spanish (Dolby 5.1)
SUBTITLES (REGULAR BLU-RAY):
English SDH, French, Spanish, Portuguese
SUBTITLES (4K BLU-RAY):
English SDH, Arabic, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (Brazilian), Portuguese (European), Slovak, Slovenian, Castilian Spanish, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish
Visited my parents in my home town in the north of Sweden this weekend. This is where I typically take a walk when I am there visiting.
Also please take a moment to visit my website
Rye bread with sesame seeds, Tzatziki and Sobrasada.
Takes like 60 seconds to make.
"Simplified lunch" is, in this case, equal to "lazy lunch."
Waiting for kenny to help me cleaning up this mess ;-p
Thanks y'all! This one made it to Explore ;-)
In case you've been wondering why you haven't heard from me much lately.... I've been planning and plotting and working tons of overtime in preparation for this six-week roadtrip.
February 28 - April 12. This map shows a simplified route. The focus of this trip is mostly on Southern California (where I spent the first 23 years of my life). There will also be a week in Texas and lots of other stops along the way. And yes, of course, the dogs are coming with me.
As with all my previous big trips, I'll upload some photos to Flickr and the blog every night. When I get home, I'll gradually get everything up at the website (what I put at Flickr is just a sampling of what you'll find there).
I'll probably only get to a fraction of the things on my list -- but I'm still open to suggestions. I look forward to you tagging along with me virtually on this adventure.
In order to find the time to simply my house, I figured out that I need to schedule time to do it! So I started my simplify calendar and I'm scheduling time to do stuff. If I can schedule in like an hour a day of getting rid of clutter, I'll make a dent in it eventually.
This is the Simplify Your Life pattern with the Ebb top front button placket, lengthened to a 3 button. On this one I used the Ebb lower portion with the vents.
Details for this dress in photos on the Simplify Your Life Flickr album.
Lìjiāng (simplified Chinese: 丽江; traditional Chinese: 麗江) is a prefecture-level city in the northwest of Yunnan province, People's Republic of China. It has an area of 21,219 square kilometres and had a population of 1,244,769 at the 2010 census.
HISTORY
Lijiang City replaced the former administrative region of Lijiang Prefecture. It was under the rule of the Mu family (木氏) local commanders (土司) during the Ming Dynasty and Qing Dynasty.
The Baisha Old Town was the political, commercial and cultural center for the local Naxi people and other ethnic groups for 400 years from the year 658 AD to 1107 AD. The Dabaoji Palace of the Baisha Fresco, very close to the Baisha Naxi Hand-made Embroidery Institute, was built in the year 658 AD in the Tang Dynasty (618 AD to 960 AD).
In ancient times, the Baisha Old Town used to be the center of silk embroidery in the southwest of China and the most important place of the Ancient Southern Silk Road, also called the Ancient Tea and Horse Road or Ancient tea route. The Ancient Southern Silk Road started from Burma, crossed Lijiang, Shangri-La County, Tibet, journeyed through Iran, the Fertile Crescent, and ultimately to the Mediterranean Sea.
Naxi women were well known for their hand-made embroidery before 1972 during the Great Cultural Revolution. The most famous Naxi masters were arrested and put in jail, some of them died in jail during the Cultural Revolution because they did hand-made embroidery only for the Naxi Emperors when they were young.
GEOGRAPHY
Lijiang is located in the northwestern portion of Yunnan and borders Sichuan. It is in a region where the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau converge.
Owing to its low latitude and high elevation, the city centre of Lijiang experiences a mild subtropical highland climate (Köppen Cwb). Winters are mild and very dry and sunny (>70% possible sunshine), although average lows in December and January are just below the freezing mark; January, the coolest month, has a 24-hour average temperature of 6.0 °C. Spring begins early and remains dry and sunny until late May, when there is a dramatic uptick in frequency and amount of rainfall that lasts until late September. Summers are warm, rainy (more so than it is sunny) and damp, with June, the warmest month, averaging 18.4 °C. Autumn sees an abrupt reduction in rainfall and return to sunniness. The annual mean temperature is 12.70 °C, while precipitation averages 968 mm, around 80% of which occurs from June to September. With monthly percent possible sunshine ranging from 32% in July to 80% in December, the city receives 2,463 hours of bright sunshine annually.
OLD TOWN
The world famous Old Town of Lijiang is located in Lijiang City. It is a UNESCO Heritage Site.
The town has a history going back more than 800 years and was once a confluence for trade along the old tea horse road. The Lijiang old town is famous for its orderly system of waterways and bridges. The old town of Lijiang differs from other ancient Chinese cities in architecture, history and the culture of its traditional residents the Nakhi people, therefore people there are called 胖金哥 and 胖金妹 (pàng jīn gē, pàng jīn mèi, male and female respectively). The town was ruled by the Mu Family during the portions of the Ming and Qing Dynasties, a period of nearly 500 years.
Overlooking Lijiang Old Town is Lion Hill and at its summit is the Wangu Pavilion, which is a wooden building that stands 33 m tall and boasts 10,000 dragon carvings. The pavilion is constructed on 16 columns each of 22 m in height. The pavilion is a masterpiece of Qing Dynasty architecture that has been extensively restored following the designation of Lijiang Old Town as a UNESCO Heritage Site.
From Lion's Hill it is possible to view the entire Li River valley, including both the old city and new city of Lijiang. Looking Northwest, the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain is dominates the horizon.
The Old Town is a maze of winding cobblestone streets. It is extremely easy to get lost as there is no grid, but each turn takes one to some new interesting spot, and it's not hard to eventually find one's way out of the maze and back to familiar territory. The layout of the town was established to conform to the flow of 3 streams in adherence to Feng Shui design, so there was water and waste disposal for the inhabitants. The Old Town has fast become a destination for young Chinese artists, students, and adventurers. Most recently, it has become a favored Spring Break destination for students. "Bar Street" is a line of clubs with live music, dancing, and revelry. The Old Town has a multitude of shops, some a bit tourist oriented, but several showcasing handcrafts, individual artists, and local manufacturers of interesting personal products.
There are dozens of restaurants, from snacks to high end dining, all very reasonably priced, cheap by Western standards.
Accommodations are varied, but the most interesting are the large number of boutique hotels run by individuals and families. These boutique hotels are in old traditional houses converted to rooms, courtyards, and gathering places, and designs all trend to traditional Chinese sensibilities. There are new high end hotel and condominium developments starting construction from 2011 forward, so there is a definite push to make the destination one for all tastes and not just young adventurers.
NEARBY
Some tens of miles north of Lijiang is the Baishui Terrace (白水台 Baishuitai, literally "White Water Terrace"), an area where spring water flows over a sinter terrace, leaving behind travertine. Lijiang is also close to the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain (玉龙雪山).
A few miles north of Lijiang is the village of Baisha, famous for the Baisha Fresco and the Naxi Hand-made Embroidery Institute.The Fresco was built in the Ming Dynasty 600 years ago, the Naxi Hand-made Embroidery Institute was built 800 years ago, it is the headquarters of the Naxi embroideries and also, a school for the Naxi embroiderers. There are many Naxi embroidery masters, teachers, students and local farmers there. Their embroidery arts can be found there.
WIKIPEDIA
Located in Okanagan Falls BC this river empties from Skaha Lake. Photo was taken with a Nikon D300 10-24mm lens and first processed in Photomatix Pro. From there I made a copy and processed that in Topaz Simplify to give it a painterly look. The 2 photos were then combined in On One Photo Layers and the river area was painted out.
OrigamiUSA posted a picture of the crease pattern Brian Chan drew on a blackboard for a class at the 2008 June convention. It seems to be of a simplified version of his Wall-E. I overlaid the info from the blackboard on his official cp. Red=mt, blue=valley, brn=you'll figure it out. Purple=my notes. Green heart=approx location of robot body
China and India
english
Chinese folk religion (simplified Chinese: 中国民间宗教 or 中国民间信仰; traditional Chinese: 中國民間宗教 or 中國民間信仰; pinyin: Zhōngguó mínjiān zōngjiào or Zhōngguó mínjiān xìnyăng) or, controversially, Shenism (pinyin: Shénjiào, 神教) are labels used to describe the collection of ethnic religious traditions which have been a main belief system in China and among Han Chinese ethnic groups for most of the civilization's history until today. Shenism comprises Chinese mythology and includes the worship of shens (神, shén; "deities", "spirits", "awarenesses", "consciousnesses", "archetypes") which can be nature deities, Taizu or clan deities, city deities, national deities, cultural heroes and demigods, dragons and ancestors. "Shenism" is a term was first published by A.J.A Elliot in 1955, and is described as a misleading terminology among scholars.
It is sometimes considered a type of Taoism, a Folk Taoism, since over the centuries institutional Taoism has been attempting to assimilate or administrate local religions. More accurately, Taoism can be defined as a branch of Shenism, since it sprang out of folk religion and Chinese philosophy. Chinese folk religion is sometimes seen as a constituent part of Chinese traditional religion, but more often, the two are regarded as synonymous. Unlike Taoism, the religious aspects found in Confucianism (worship of Confucius and his disciples, worship of Tian, rituals and sacrifices) never became doctrinally and institutionally independent and have thus remained for centuries part of Shenism.
With around 454 million adherents, or about 6.6% of the world population, Chinese folk religion is one of the major religious traditions in the world. In China more than 30% of the population adheres to Shenism or Taoism.
Despite being heavily suppressed during the last two centuries of the history of China, from the Taiping Movement to the Cultural Revolution, it is experiencing a major revival nowadays in both Mainland China and Taiwan. Various forms have received support by the Government of the People's Republic of China, such as Mazuism in Southern China (officially about 160 million Chinese are Mazuists), Huangdi worship, Black Dragon worship in Shaanxi, and Caishen worship.
Overview
Chinese folk religion retains traces of some of ancestral primal religious belief systems such as animism and shamanism,which include the veneration of (and communication with) the Sun, the Moon, the Earth, the Heaven, and various stars, as well as communication with animals. It has been practiced by the Chinese people for thousands of years, and since the start of the Common Era alongside Buddhism, Taoism and various other religions.
Rituals, devotional worship, myths sacred reinactment, festivals and various other practices associated with different folk gods and goddesses form an important part of Chinese culture today. The veneration of secondary gods does not conflict with an individual's chosen religion, but is accepted as a complementary adjunct, particularly to Taoism. Some mythical figures in folk culture have been integrated into Chinese Buddhism, as in the case of Miao Shan. She is generally thought to have influenced the beliefs about the Buddhist bodhisattva Guanyin. This bodhisattva originally was based upon the Indian counterpart Avalokiteśvara. Androgynous in India, this bodhisattva over centuries became a female figure in China and Japan. Guanyin is one of the most popular bodishisattvas to which people pray.
There are many free folk religion texts such as Journeys to the Underworld distributed in temples, or sold in gods material shops or vegetarian shops. Temples for Shenist worship are different from Taoist temples and Buddhist monasteries, being administered by local managers, associations and worship communities.
Characteristics
Gods and goddesses
There are hundreds of local gods and goddess as well as demigods. After apotheosis, historical figures noted for their bravery or virtue are also venerated and honored as ancestral "saints", xians, or heightened to the status of shens, deities. The following list represents some commonly worshipped deities.
Pangu (盘古), the creator god in certain myths. He is usually depicted as a primitive, hairy giant with horns on his head and clad in furs. Pangu set about the task of creating the world: he separated Yin from Yang with a swing of his giant axe, creating the Earth (murky Yin) and the Sky (clear Yang).
Fuxi (伏羲), also known as Paoxi, a divine patriarch reputed to have taught to humanity writing, fishing, and hunting. Cangjie is also said to have invented writing.
Nüwa (女娲), also Nügua, an ancient mother goddess, attributed for the creation of mankind. In later traditions she is described as the twin sister or/and wife of Fuxi.
Shennong (神农), also identified as Yandi (炎帝), a divine patriarch said to have taught the ancient Chinese the practices of agriculture. He is often represented as a human with bull horns.
Huangdi (黃帝), or "Yellow Emperor", the divine patriarch of the Huaxia culture lineage. He is regarded as the founder of the whole Chinese civilization.
Guan Yu (关羽), also known with the templar names of Guandi and Guan Gong, the red-faced, bearded hero of Romance of the Three Kingdoms and symbol of loyalty. He is the patron god of policemen, war, fortune, and law, as he shows forgiveness, and often also serves as Wu Sheng.
Baosheng Dadi (保生大帝), a divine physician, whose powers extend to raising the dead. Worship is especially prevalent in Fujian and Taiwan.
Caishen (财神 "God of Wealth"), who oversees the gaining and distribution of wealth through fortune. He is often the deified manifestation of certain historical personalities such as Zhao Gongming or Bi Gan. His shape is sometimes that of a giant blue whiskered cat.
Shoushen (寿神 "God of Longevity"), who stands for a healthy and long life. He is portrayed as an old balding man with a walking stick in his right hand and a peach in his left.
Fushen (福神 "God of Happiness"), he looks like a traditional Chinese feudal lord with red clothing. He symbolizes happiness and joy.
Lushen (禄神 "God of Prosperity"), a god of success in work and life. In ancient times he was the patron god of success in imperial bureaucracy.
The Baxian (八仙), the "Eight Immortals", are important literary and artistic figures who were deified after death and became objects of worship. In Taoism they're worshipped as xians.
Huye (虎爺), a guardian spirit, often found at the bottom of Taoist temple shrines. Worshipers revere the tiger spirit to curse spiritual enemies. Rituals include stomping an effigy of a spiritual enemy in front of the tiger spirit, as well as sacrificing meat offerings, paper gold, and others.
The Jiuhuang Dadi (九皇大帝) refer to spirits of nine emperors, worshiped as emanations of Mazu, patron goddess of sailors. A festival is held over the first nine days of the ninth lunar month to celebrate the return from heaven to earth of the Nine Emperor spirits. This is celebrated primarily in Malaysia.
Mazu (妈祖 "Ancient Mother"), the patroness, also considered as the goddess of sailors. Shrines can be found in coastal areas of Eastern and South-Eastern China. Today, belief in Mazu is especially popular in the South and South-East, including Fujian (福建), Guangdong (廣東), Hainan (海南), Taiwan (台灣), Hong Kong (香港), and Vietnam (越南).
Qiye (七爺) and Baye (八爺), two generals and best friends, often seen as giant puppets in street parades. 8 is black, because he drowned rather than miss his appointment to meet with 7, even though a flood was coming. 7 has his tongue sticking out, because he hanged himself in mourning for 8.
Shangdi (上帝) is originally the supreme god, synonymous with the concept of Tian. This title/name was later applied to the supreme deity of various religions, including Yu Huang Dadi and the Christian God.
Cheng Huang (城隍), commonly known as "City God" in English, a class of protective deities: each city has a Cheng Huang who looks after the fortunes of the city and judges the dead. Usually these are famous or noble persons from the city who were deified after death. The Cheng Huang Miao (城隍廟) or "City God Temple" was often the focal point of a town in ancient times.
Tudi Gong (土地公 "God of the Earth"), a genius loci who protects a local place (especially hills), and whose statue may be found in roadside shrines. He is also the god of wealth, by virtue of his connection with the earth, and therefore, minerals and buried treasure.
Wenchangdi (文昌帝), god of students, scholars, and examination. He is worshiped by students who wish to pass their examinations. Inept examiners in ancient times sometimes sought "divine guidance" from him to decide rank between students.
Xi Wangmu (西王母), the "Queen Mother of the West", also known as Yaochi Jinmu (瑤池金母 "Golden Mother of the Jade Pond"), a mother goddess who reigns over a paradisaical mountain and has the power to make others immortal. In some myths, she is the mother of the Jade Emperor (玉帝).
Yuexia Laoren (月下老人 "Old Man Under the Moon"). The matchmaker who pairs lovers together, worshiped by those seeking their partner.
Zaoshen (灶神), the "God of the Kitchen", also Zao Jun (灶君), mentioned in the title of Amy Tan's novel, The Kitchen God's Wife. He reports to heaven on the behavior of the family of the house once a year, at Chinese New Year, and is given sticky rice to render his speech less comprehensible on that occasion.
Songzi Niangniang (送子娘娘) or Zhusheng Niangniang (註生娘娘), a fertility goddess. She is worshipped by people who want children, or who want their child to be a boy.
Places of worship
Shenist temples can be distinguished into miao (庙), called "joss houses", "deity houses" or simply "temples" in English, and ci (祠), called "ancestral halls" or simply "temples" in English. Both the terms actually mean "temple" in Chinese, and they've been used interchangeably many times. However miao is the general Chinese term for "temple" understood as "place of worship", and can be used for places of worship of any religion. In Chinese folk religion it is mostly associated to temples which enshrine nature gods and patron gods. Instead ci is the specific term for temples enshrining ancestry gods, human beings apotheosized as gods.
"Joss" is a corrupted version of the Portuguese word for "god", deus. "Joss house" was in common use in English in western North America during frontier times, when joss houses were a common feature of Chinatowns. The name "joss house" describes the environment of worship. Joss sticks, a kind of incense, are burned inside and outside of the house.
Shenist temples are distinct from Taoist temples (观 guan or 道观 daoguan) and Buddhist monasteries (寺 si) in that they are established and administered by local managers, associations and worship communities; only few or none priests stay in folk temples. Shenist temples are usually small, very colourful (by contrast with Taoist temples which by tradition should be black and white in color, and Buddhist temples which are characterised by a prevalence of yellow and red tonalities), and decorated with traditional figures on their roofs (dragons and deities), although some evolve into significant structures. Other terms associated to templar structures of Shenism and other religions in China are 宫 gong ("palace"), often used for large temples (even if mostly Taoist) built by imperial officials, and 院 yuan, a general term for "sanctuary", "shrine".
português
Religião tradicional chinesa é a religião do povo chinês. É uma religião politeísta, com certos elementos do xamanismo e teve influência do budismo, do confucionismo e do taoísmo.
Seu número de seguidores é difícil de ser calculado, mas as fontes variam entre 880 milhões e 390 milhões. Sendo uma religião sincretista, sua diferenciação de outras tradições espirituais chinesas é difícil.
Deuses e deusas
Guan Yu (關羽), o Deus-Supremo
Fu Shen (福神)
Hu Ye (虎爺)
Jiu Wang Ye (九皇爺), o 9o imperador divino
Mazu (媽祖)
Qiye (七爺) e Baye (八爺)
Shangdi Shangdi (上帝) (lit. Supremo Imperador)
Cheng Huang (城隍)
Sun Wukong (孫悟空)
Tu Di Gong (土地公)
Wenchangdi (文昌帝)
Xi Wangmu (西王母)
Yuexia Laoren (月下老人)
Zao Shen (灶君|灶神)
Zhusheng Niangniang (註生娘娘)
english
The Museum of the Orient (Portuguese: Museu do Oriente) in Lisbon, Portugal celebrates the history of Portuguese exploration with a collection of Asian artifacts. The museum opened in May, 2008, and is located in a refurbished industrial building on the Alcântara waterfront. The collection includes Indonesian textiles, Japanese screens, antique snuff bottles, crucifixes made in Asia for Western export, and the Kwok On Collection of masks, costumes, and accessories.
português
O Museu do Oriente está instalado no edifício Pedro Álvares Cabral, antigos armazéns da Comissão Reguladora do Comércio do Bacalhau em Alcântara, Lisboa.
O museu reúne colecções que têm o Oriente como temática principal, nas vertentes histórica, religiosa, antropológica e artística.
A exposição permanente engloba 1400 peças alusivas à presença portuguesa na Ásia e 650 peças pertencentes à colecção Kwok On.
O museu é da responsabilidade da Fundação Oriente e foi inaugurado no dia 8 de Maio de 2008.
A actual directora é Maria Manuela d'Oliveira Martins.
Foi classificado como Monumento de interesse público (MIP) pelo IGESPAR em 15 de junho de 2010.
May 12, 2019 - Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio located at 951 Chicago Ave., Oak Park, IL.
"In 1889 Wright completed the construction of a small two-story residence in Oak Park on the Western edges of Chicago. The building was the first over which Wright exerted complete artistic control. Designed as a home for his family, the Oak Park residence was a site of experimentation for the young architect during the twenty-year period he lived there. Wright revised the design of the building multiple times, continually refining ideas that would shape his work for decades to come.
The semi-rural village of Oak Park, where Wright built his home, offered a retreat from the hurried pace of city life. Named “Saint’s Rest” for its abundance of churches, Oak Park was originally settled in the 1830s by pioneering East Coast families. In its early years farming was the principal business of the village, however its proximity to Chicago soon attracted professional men and their families. Along its unpaved dirt streets sheltered by mature oaks and elms, prosperous families erected elaborate homes. Beyond the borders of the village farmland and open prairie stretched as far as the eye could see.
The Oak Park Home was the product of the nineteenth century culture from which Wright emerged. For its design, Wright drew upon many inspirational sources prevalent in the waning years of the nineteenth century. From his family background in Unitarianism Wright absorbed the ideas of the Transcendentalists, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, who encouraged an honest life inspired by nature. The English Arts and Crafts movement, which promoted craftsmanship, simplicity and integrity in art, architecture and design, provided a powerful impetus to Wright’s principles. The household art movement, a distinct movement in middle-class home decoration, informed Wright’s earliest interiors. It aimed, as the name implies, to bring art into the home, and was primarily disseminated through books and articles written by tastemakers who believed that the home interior could exert moral influences upon its inhabitants. These various sources were tempered by the lessons and practices Wright learned under his mentors, Joseph Lyman Silsbee and Louis Sullivan.
For the exterior of his home, Wright adapted the picturesque Shingle style, fashionable for the vacation homes of wealthy East Coast families and favored by his previous employer, Silsbee. The stamp of Sullivan’s influence is apparent in the simplification and abstraction of the building and its plan. In contrast to what Wright described as “candle-snuffer roofs, turnip domes [and] corkscrew spires” of the surrounding houses, his home’s façade is defined by bold geometric shapes—a substantial triangular gable set upon a rectangular base, polygonal window bays, and the circular wall of the wide veranda.
Despite its modest scale, the interior of the home is an early indication of Wright’s desire to liberate space. On the ground floor Wright created a suite of rooms arranged around a central hearth and inglenook, a common feature of the Shingle style. The rooms flow together, connected by wide, open doorways hung with portieres that can be drawn for privacy. To compensate for the modest scale of the house, and to create an inspiring environment for his family, Wright incorporated artwork and objects that brought warmth and richness to the interiors. Unique furniture, Oriental rugs, potted palms, statues, paintings and Japanese prints filled the rooms, infusing them with a sense of the foreign, the exotic and the antique.
In 1895, to accommodate his growing family, Wright undertook his first major renovation of the Home. A new dining room and children’s playroom doubled the floor space. The design innovations pioneered by Wright at this time marked a significant development in the evolution of his style, bringing him closer to his ideal for the new American home.
The original dining room was converted into a study, and a new dining room replaced the former kitchen. The dining room is unified around a central oak table lit through a decorative panel above and with an alcove of leaded glass windows in patterns of conventionalized lotus flowers. The walls and ceiling are covered with honey-toned burlap; the floor and fireplace are lined with red terracotta tile.
The new dining room is a warm and intimate space to gather with family and friends. The Wrights entertained frequently, and were joined at their table by clients, artists, authors and international visitors. Such festive occasions, according to Wright’s son, John, gave the house the air of a “jolly carnival.”
The 1895 playroom on the second floor of the Home is one of the great spaces of Wright’s early career. Designed to inspire and nurture his six children, the room is a physical expression of Wright’s belief that, “For the same reason that we teach our children to speak the truth, or better still live the truth, their environment ought to be as truly beautiful as we are capable of making it.” Architectural details pioneered by Wright in this room would be developed and enhanced in numerous commissions throughout his career.
The high, barrel-vaulted ceiling rests on walls of Roman brick. At the center of the vault’s arc a skylight, shielded by wood grilles displaying stylized blossoms and seedpods, provides illumination. Striking cantilevered light fixtures of oak and glass, added after Wright’s 1905 trip to Japan, bathe the room in a warm ambient glow. On either side of the room, window bays of leaded glass with built-in window seats are at the height of the mature trees that surround the lot, placing Wright’s children in the leafy canopy of the trees outside.
Above the fireplace of Roman brick, a mural depicting the story of the Fisherman and the Genie from The Arabian Nights is painted on the plastered wall. An integral architectural feature within the room, the mural was designed by Wright and executed by his colleague, the artist Charles Corwin. It is a fascinating blend of decorative motifs; forms from exotic cultures—such as Egyptian winged scarabs—are combined with flat, geometric designs that echo the work of Wright’s international contemporaries, Charles Rennie Mackintosh and the Vienna Secessionists.
In 1898 Wright built a new Studio wing with funds secured through a commission with the Luxfer Prism Company. The Studio faced Chicago Avenue and was connected to his residence by a corridor. Clad in wood shingles and brick, the Studio exterior is consistent with the earlier home. However, the long, horizontal profile, a key feature of Wright’s mature Prairie buildings, sets it apart. Adjacent to the entrance, a stone plaque announces to the world, “Frank Lloyd Wright, Architect.” Decorative embellishments and figural sculptures set off the building’s artistic character and impressed arriving clients.
The reception hall serves as the entrance to the Studio. A waiting room for clients and a place for Wright to review architectural plans with contractors, this low-ceilinged space connects the main areas of the Studio—a library, a small office, and the dramatic two-story drafting room, the creative heart of the building.
The studio staff worked on drafting tables and stools designed by Wright in rooms decorated with eclectic displays of artwork and objects. Japanese prints, casts of classical sculptures, as well as models and drawings executed in the drafting room, filled the interiors of the Studio. In Wright’s home the integration of art and architecture served to nurture and intellectually sustain his family. In the Studio, these same elements served a further purpose, the marketing of Wright’s artistic identity to his clients and the public at large.
In September of 1909, Wright left America for Europe to work on the publication of a substantial monograph of his buildings and projects, the majority of which had been designed in his Oak Park Studio. The result was the Wasmuth Portfolio (Berlin, 1910), which introduced Wright's work to Europe and influenced a generation of international architects. Wright remained abroad for a year, returning to Oak Park in the fall of 1910. He immediately began plans for a new home and studio, Taliesin, which he would build in the verdant hills of Spring Green, Wisconsin. Wright’s Oak Park Studio closed in 1910, though Wright himself returned occasionally to meet with his wife Catherine who remained with the couple's youngest children at the Oak Park Home and Studio until 1918. The Home and Studio was the birthplace of Wright's vision for a new American architecture. Wright designed over 150 projects in his Oak Park Studio, establishing his legacy as a great and visionary architect.
Previous text from the following website: flwright.org/researchexplore/homeandstudio
+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based on historical facts. BEWARE!
Some background:
The Flakpanzer Coelian comprised a family of self-propelled anti-aircraft gun tanks, designed by Rheinmetall during World War II for the German armed forces. In the first years of the war, the Wehrmacht had only little interest in developing self-propelled anti-aircraft guns, but as the Allies developed air superiority, the need for more mobile and better-armed self-propelled anti-aircraft guns increased.
As a stopgap solution the Wehrmacht had adapted a variety of wheeled, half-track and tracked vehicles to serve as mobile forward air defense positions to protect armor and infantry units in the field as well as for temporary forward area positions such as mobile headquarters and logistic points. As Allied fighter bombers and other ground attack aircraft moved from machine gun armament and bombing to air-to-ground rockets, the air defense positions were even more vulnerable. The answer was to adapt a tank chassis with a specialized turret that would protect the gun crews while they fired upon approaching Allied aircraft.
Initial AA-tank designs were the ‘Möbelwagen’ and the ‘Wirbelwind’, effectively both conversions of refurbished Panzer IV combat tank chassis’ with open platforms or open turrets with four 20mm cannon. Alternatively, a single 37mm AA gun was mounted, too, resulting in the more effective ‘Ostwind’ tank – but all these vehicles were just compromises and suffered from light armor and lack of crew protection.
Further developments led to the ‘Kugelblitz’, another Panzer IV variant, but this time the ball-shaped turret was effectively integrated into the hull, resulting in a low silhouette and a fully protected crew. Another new feature was the use of the Mauser MK 103 machine cannon – a lightweight, belt-fed aircraft gun with a gas-powered action mechanism, first employed on board of the Hs 129 attack aircraft against ground targets, including tanks. The Mk 103 had a weight of only 141 kg (311 lb) and a length of 235 cm (93 in) (with muzzle brake). Barrel length was 134 cm (53 in), resulting in Kaliber L/44.7 (44.7 calibres).
Anyway, the Kugelblitz could only mount two of these guns in its very cramped and complicated tilting turret. Venting and ammunition feed problems could also not be solved, so that the innovative vehicle never made it beyond the prototype and evaluation stage, even though the integration of the Kugelblitz turret into the hull of the Jagdpanzer ‘Hetzer’ was considered for some time.
In parallel, the promising MK 103 was also tested in the four-gun carriage of the Wirlbelwind’s 20 mm Flakvierling 38 mount, resulting in the ‘3 cm Flakvierling 103/38’ and the respective ‘Zerstörer 45’ tank prototype. But this was, effectively, only a juiced up version of the obsolete ‘Wirbelwind’, again with only a roofless and vulnerable turret and the obsolete Panzer IV as base. The ‘Zerstörer 45’ was consequently rejected, but the firepower of the four guns was immense: Rate of fire of a single MK 103 was 400 - 450 RPM, and the rounds carried three times as much explosive charge as a Soviet 37 mm round. Both HE/M and APCR rounds were available for the MK 103. Muzzle velocity was 860-940 m/sec, paired with a high degree of accuracy. The armor penetration for APCR was 42–52 mm (1.7–2.0 in) / 60° / 300 m (980 ft) or 75–95 mm (3.0–3.7 in) / 90° / 300 m (980 ft) – more than enough for aircraft, and even dangerous for many combat tanks when hitting more lightly armored areas. Anyway, it was not possible to combine four of these 30mm guns with a favorably shaped, completely enclosed turret for an effective front line anti-aircraft tank that could stand its own among the armored combat units.
The solution to this problem eventually materialized in 1943 with the decision to completely abandon the limiting Panzer IV chassis and build a new generation of anti-aircraft tanks on the basis of the larger (and heavier) Panzer V medium battle tank, the ‘Panther’. Its chassis had in the meantime become available in considerably numbers from damaged and/or recovered combat tanks, and updated details like new turrets or different wheels were gradually introduced into production and during refurbishments.
The Panther could mount a considerably larger and heavier turret than the previous standard tank chassis like the Panzer III and IV, and this potential was full exploited – as well as the possibility to increase the weapon system’s weight, thanks to the sturdier chassis. Rheinmetall’s new, fully enclosed, 360° rotating turret could carry a wide array of weapons and ammunition (all were belt-fed), a crew of three and also offered a good protection through a sloped, frontal armor of 70mm thickness. Traverse and elevation of the turret was hydraulic, allowing a full elevation in just over four seconds, and a 360° traverse in 15.5 seconds. The initial version was armed with two 3.7 cm FlaK 43 guns, as a compromise between range, firepower and rate of fire. Beyond this initial variant, Rheinmetall developed the ‘Coelian’ turret in various versions, too, including fully enclosed turrets with a single 55 mm gun and with four 20mm MG 151/20 guns.
Eventually, in May 1944, a complete family of turrets with different armament options was cleared for production: the standard Coelian I, with a revised mount for the twin 3.7 cm FlaK 43 guns, a heavier variant with twin 55 mm guns against larger, high-flying targets (Coelian II; the guns were based on another aircraft weapon, the MK 214), and finally the Coelian III with four Mk 103 cannon against low-flying attack aircraft and soft/lightly armored ground targets. The variant with four 20 mm guns had been dropped, since it did not offer and added value compared to the Coelian III. All these vehicles ran under the SdKfz. 171/3 designation, with suffixes (A-C) to distinguish their armament in a more or less standardized turret.
Even though ground-based, mobile radar systems were under development at that time, all these turrets had to rely only on optical sensors, even though very effective optical rangefinders were introduced. All the turrets of the Coelian family were to be mounted on revamped Panzer V chassis, simply replacing the former combat tank turrets (either the original production turret from the A, D and G variant or the newly introduced Schmalturm from the F version). Theoretically, they could have also been mounted onto the Panzer VI ‘Tiger’ chassis, but due to this type’s weight and complexity, this was not carried out.
However, the SdKfz. 171/3 Panther/Coelian family designation had in the meantime also just become an interim solution: Plans had been made to start the production of a completely new, simplified tank vehicle family, the so-called ‘Einheitspanzer’. The resulting standard combat tanks (called E-50 and E-75, based on their weight class in tonnes) and their respective hulls would be based on the large Königstiger battle tank, and potentially accept even bigger turrets and weapons. Consequentially, while production of the Coelian turrets and the conversion of 2nd hand and by the time also new Panther hulls of all variants was just gaining momentum in late 1944, work for the new Einheitspanzer tanks and their weaponry had already started.
Roundabout 300 Coelian tanks reached frontline units, two third of them were factory-built, and in the course of early 1945 the Coelian family had gradually replaced most of the outdated Panzer IV AA variants and SPAAGs with open turrets. The Coelian tanks were soon joined by the newly produced, dedicated Flakpanzer variants of the Einheitspanzer family, including a twin 55 mm gun on the E-50 chassis and also a monstrous 140 ton anti-aircraft variant of the heavy E-100 chassis, equipped with an automatic twin 8.8cm Flak in a fully enclosed and heavily armored turret.
Specifications:
Crew: Five (commander, gunner, loader/2nd gunner, driver, radio-operator/hull machine gunner)
Weight: 44.8 tonnes (44.1 long tons; 49.4 short tons)
Length: 6.87 m (22 ft 6 in)
Width: 3.42 m (11 ft 3 in) with side skirts
Height: 3.13 m (10 ft 3 in)
Suspension: Double torsion bar, interleaved road wheels
Fuel capacity: 720 litres (160 imp gal; 190 US gal)
Armor:
15–80 mm (0.6 – 3.15 in)
Performance:
Maximum road speed: 46 km/h (29 mph)
Operational range: 250 km (160 mi)
Power/weight: 15.39 PS (11.5 kW)/tonne (13.77 hp/ton)
Engine:
Maybach HL230 P30 V-12 petrol engine with 700 PS (690 hp, 515 kW)
ZF AK 7-200 gear; 7 forward 1 reverse
Armament:
4× 30 mm (1.18 in) MK 103 machine cannon with 3.600 rounds
1× 7.92 mm MG 34 machine gun in the front glacis plate with 2.500 rounds
The kit and its assembly:
This was a spontaneous build, in the wake of other recent whif tanks and using some leftover parts from the kit pile(s). Things started with a KORA 1:72 resin conversion kit with a 2x 37mm FlaK Coelian turret for a Panther chassis – but with broken and bent gun barrels. I had actually stashed the parts away for a potential mecha build/conversion, long ago, but while doing legwork for late German WWII tanks I recently came again across the various anti-aircraft tank designs. And I wondered if mounting the Coelian turret on a Panzer IV chassis would be possible and lead to a compact (and whiffy) new vehicle?
Well, it would not work, because the Coelian turret needs a considerably bigger turret bearing diameter than anything the Panzer IV hull could realistically handle (even the Panther’s Schmalturm is actually a little too wide…), and so I folded the idea up again and put it onto the “vague ideas” pile.
…until I stumbled upon the leftover hull from a Hasegawa Panther Ausf. F in the donor kits pile, which had originally given both of its OOB turrets (a Schmalturm and a standard model) to other conversions. While mating the Coelian turret with its originally intended hull was not a sexy project, I eventually did so, because I could effectively use two leftovers for something sound and well-balanced.
Concerning the assembly phase, there’s not much to tell about the Hasegawa Panther Ausf. F. Fit is good, a simple kit, and it comes, as a benefit, with optional all-steel wheels which I used for my conversion, changing the overall look to a true late war model. Only the opening for the turret had to be widened in order to accept the new resin turret.
The latter only consists of two parts: the massive core section and a separate weapon mount. The latter was in so far modified that I added a simple metal peg which can be switched between two holes in the turret hull, for two gun positions.
Since the original gun barrels had to be replaced, anyway, I did a thorough (and fictional) modification: I used four 1:48 20 mm brass barrels for a Flak 38 Flakvierling (from RB Models) and mounted them in two staggered pairs onto the original cannon fairing. The resulting gun array looks impressive and even realistic, and, thanks to the scale-o-rama effect, the 1:48 parts have the perfect size for 30 mm cannon barrels in 1:72!
Painting and markings:
Something “German”, but nothing spectacular, so I ended up with another variant of the Hinterhalt scheme, found on a Jagdpanther from the Ardennenoffensive period. In this case, the prominent colors are Dunkelgelb and Olivgrün in broad stripes, separated by blurred, thin lines made of Rotbraun.
As a little twist I wanted to modify the scheme in so far that this vehicle was to show its conversion heritage in a workshop, so hull and turret received different basic tones as an initial step.
The hull and all wheels were painted with matt RAL 7028 (a modern equivalent to the WWII Dunkelgelb), while the turret received a red primer coat with Oxidrot (RAL 3009). On top of these, wide green bands (RAL 6003 from Modelmaster) and separating russet (Humbrol 113) stripes were painted with brushes. In order to brighten up the relatively dark turret, some yellow mottles were added on the Oxidrot areas (using Revell 16).
Once dry, the whole surface received a sand paper treatment, so that the RAL 7028 would shine through here and there, as if worn out. After a dark brown wash, details were emphasized with dry-brushing in light grey and beige. Decals were puzzled together from various German tank sheets, and the kit finally sealed with matt acrylic varnish.
The black vinyl tracks were also painted/weathered, with a wet-in-wet mix of black, iron and red brown (all acrylics). Once they were mounted into place, mud and dust around the running gear and the lower hull was simulated with a greyish-brown mix of artist mineral pigments.
A bit of recycling and less exotic than originally hoped for – but it’s still a whiffy tank model, and its proximity to the real but unrealized Coelian project makes this one even more subtle. Pile reduction, one by one…
It would appear that SanDisk realized their card branding was getting out of hand. Extreme I, II, III, IV, etc. Ultra I, II, III (was there more?). Am I missing anything. I'm sure that when the marketing department was doing this, they had a valid reason for each name. However, it seems like they came to their senses and are simplifying the line-up.
As far as I can tell the new CF cards come in three varieties:
Ultra, 30MB/sec
Extreme 60MB/sec
Extreme Professional 90MB/sec
I am not sure if this holds true for the SD cards, but I'm sure there is something similar. Definitely a good move on their part, there was really no reason to keep all those SKUs out there clogging up resellers systems and confusing customers. Hopefully this simplification brings the prices down further (still seem a bit inflated if you ask me)
This new Extreme CF card is rated twice as fast as the Extreme III card it replaces. Part of this increase comes from UDMA technology, which, from what I understand writes to blocks scattered throughout the card. The extra speed only comes when using compatible cameras and card readers, but in theory should really speed things up. So, we will see how this little guy performs, and hopefully the 32GB Extreme Pro cards come down to 50 bucks before years end!
St. Mary's Church in Lübeck (German: Marienkirche, officially St. Marien zu Lübeck) was built between 1250 and 1350. It has always been a symbol of the power and prosperity of the old Hanseatic city, and is situated at the highest point of the island that forms the old town of Lübeck. It is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site of the old Hanseatic City of Lübeck.
St. Mary's epitomizes north German Brick Gothic and set the standard for about 70 other churches in the Baltic region, making it a building of enormous architectural significance. St Mary's Church embodied the towering style of French Gothic architecture style using north German brick. It has the tallest brick vault in the world, the height of the central nave being 38.5 metres.
It is built as a three-aisled basilica with side chapels, an ambulatory with radiating chapels, and vestibules like the arms of a transept. The westwork has a monumental two-tower façade. The height of the towers, including the weather vanes, is 124.95 metres and 124.75 metres, respectively.
St. Mary's is located in the Hanseatic merchants' quarter, which extends uphill from the warehouses on the River Trave to the church. As the main parish church of the citizens and the city council of Lübeck, it was built close to the town hall and the market.
HISTORY OF THE BUILDING
In 1150, Henry the Lion moved the Bishopric of Oldenburg to Lübeck and established a cathedral chapter. A wooden church was built in 1163, and starting in 1173/1174 this was replaced by a Romanesque brick church. At the beginning of the 13th century, however, it no longer met the expectations of the self-confident, ambitious, and affluent bourgeoisie, in terms of size and prestige. Romanesque sculptures from this period of the church's history are today exhibited at St. Anne's Museum in Lübeck
The design of the three-aisled basilica was based on the Gothic cathedrals in France and Flanders, which were built of natural stone. St. Mary's is the epitome of ecclesiastical Brick Gothic architecture and set the standard for many churches in the Baltic region, such as the St. Nicholas' Church in Stralsund and St. Nicholas in Wismar.
No one had ever before built a brick church this high and with a vaulted ceiling. The lateral thrust exerted by the vault is met by buttresses, making the enormous height possible. The motive for the Lübeck town council to embark on such an ambitious undertaking was the acrimonious relationship with the Bishopric of Lübeck. The church was built close to the Lübeck Town Hall and the market, and it dwarfed the nearby Romanesque Lübeck Cathedral, the church of the bishop established by Henry the Lion. It was meant as a symbol of the desire for freedom on the part of the Hanseatic traders and the secular authorities of the city, which had been granted the status of a free imperial city (Reichsfreiheit), making the city directly subordinate to the emperor, in 1226. It was also intended to underscore the pre-eminence of the city vis-à-vis the other cities of the Hanseatic League, which was being formed at about the same time (1356).
The Chapel of Indulgences (Briefkapelle) was added to the east of the south tower in 1310. It was both a vestibule and a chapel and, with its portal, was the church's second main entrance from the market. Probably originally dedicated to Saint Anne, the chapel received its current name during the Reformation, when paid scribes moved in. The chapel, which is 12 metres long, 8 metres deep, and 2 metres high, has a stellar vault ceiling and is considered a masterpiece of High Gothic architecture. It has often been compared to English Gothic Cathedral Architecture and the chapter house of Malbork Castle. Today the Chapel of Indulgences serves the community as a church during winter, with services from January to March.
In 1939 the town council built its own chapel, known as the Bürgermeisterkapelle (Burgomasters' Chapel), at the southeast corner of the ambulatory, the join being visible from the outside where there is a change from glazed to unglazed brick. It was in this chapel, from the large pew that still survives, that the newly elected council used to be installed. On the upper floor of the chapel is the treasury, where important documents of the city were kept. This part of the church is still in the possession of the town.
Before 1444, a chapel consisting of a single bay was added to the eastern end of the ambulatory, its five walls forming five eighths of an octagon. This was the last Gothic extension to the church. It was used for celebrating the so-called Hours of the Virgin, as part of the veneration of the Virgin Mary, reflected in its name Marientidenkapelle (Lady Chapel) or Sängerkapelle (Singers' Chapel).
In total, St Mary's Church has nine larger chapels and ten smaller ones that serve as sepulchral chapels and are named after the families of the Lübeck city council that used them and endowed them.
DESTRUCTION AND RESTAURATION
In an air raid by 234 bombers of the British Royal Air Force on 28–29 March 1942 – the night of Palm Sunday – the church was almost completely destroyed by fire, together with about a fifth of the Lübeck city centre, including Lübeck Cathedral and St. Peter's Church.
Among the artefacts destroyed was the famous Totentanzorgel (Danse Macabre organ), an instrument played by Dieterich Buxtehude and probably Johann Sebastian Bach. Other works of art destroyed in the fire include the Mass of Saint Gregory by Bernt Notke, the monumental Danse Macabre, originally by Bernt Notke but replaced by a copy in 1701, the carved figures of the rood screen, the Trinity altarpiece by Jacob van Utrecht (formerly also attributed to Bernard van Orley) and the Entrance of Christ into Jerusalem by Friedrich Overbeck. Sculptures by the woodcarver Benedikt Dreyer were also lost in the fire: the wooden statues of the saints on the west side of the rood screen and the organ sculpture on the great organ from around 1516–18 and Man with Counting Board. Also destroyed in the fire were the mediaeval stained glass windows from the St. Mary Magdalene Church (de), which were installed in St. Mary's Church from 1840 on, after the St. Mary Magdalene Church was demolished because it was in danger of collapse. Photographs by Lübeck photographers like William Castelli (de) give an impression of what the interior looked like before the War.
The glass window in one of the chapels has an alphabetic list of major towns in the pre-1945 eastern territory of the German Reich. Because of the destruction it suffered in World War II, St. Mary's Church is one of the Cross of Nails centres. A plaque on the wall warns of the futility of war.
The church was protected by a makeshift roof for the rest of the war, and the vaulted ceiling of the chancel was repaired. Reconstruction proper began in 1947, and was largely complete by 1959. In view of the previous damage by fire, the old wooden construction of the roof and spires was not replaced by a new wooden construction. All church spires in Lübeck were reconstructed using a special system involving lightweight concrete blocks underneath the copper roofing. The copper covering matched the original design and the concrete roof would avoid the possibility of a second fire. A glass window on the north side of the church commemorates the builder, Erich Trautsch (de), who invented this system.
In 1951, the 700th anniversary of the church was celebrated under the reconstructed roof; for the occasion, Chancellor Konrad Adenauer donated the new tenor bell, and the Memorial Chapel in the South Tower was inaugurated.
In the 1950s, there was a long debate about the design of the interior, not just the paintings (see below). The predominant view was that destruction had restored the essential, pure form. The redesign was intended to facilitate the dual function that St. Mary's had at that time, being both the diocesan church and the parish church. In the end, the church held a limited competition, inviting submissions from six architects, including Gerhard Langmaack (de) and Denis Boniver (de), the latter's design being largely accepted on 8 February 1958. At the meeting, the bishop, Heinrich Meyer (de), vehemently – and successfully – demanded the removal of the Fredenhagen altar (see below).
The redesign of the interior according to Boniver's plans was carried out in 1958–59. Since underfloor heating was being installed under a completely new floor, the remaining memorial slabs of Gotland limestone were removed and used to raise the level of the chancel. The chancel was separated from the ambulatory by whitewashed walls 3 metres high. The Fredenhagen altar was replaced by a plain altar base of muschelkalk limestone and a crucifix by Gerhard Marcks suspended from the transverse arch of the ceiling. The inauguration of the new chancel was on 20 December 1959.
At the same time, a treasure chamber was made for the Danzig Parament Treasure from St. Mary's Church in Danzig (now Gdańsk), which came to Lübeck after the War (removed in 1993), the Parament Treasure is now exhibited at St. Anne's Museum), and above that a large organ loft was built. The organ itself was not installed until 1968.
The gilded flèche, which extends 30 metres (98 ft) higher than the nave roof, was recreated from old designs and photographs in 1980.
LOTHAR MALSKAT AND THE FRESCOS
The heat of the blaze in 1942 dislodged large sections of plaster, revealing the original decorative paintings of the Middle Ages, some of which were documented by photograph during the Second World War. In 1948 the task of restoring these gothic frescos was given to Dietrich Fey. In what became the largest counterfeit art scandal after the Second World War, Fey hired local painter Lothar Malskat to assist with this task, and together they used the photographic documentation to restore and recreate a likeness to the original walls. Since no paintings of the clerestory of the chancel were available, Fey had Malskat invent one. Malskat "supplemented" the restorations with his own work in the style of the 14th century. The forgery was only cleared up after Malskat reported his deeds to the authorities in 1952, and he and Fey received prison sentences in 1954. The major fakes were later removed from the walls, on the instructions of the bishop.
Lothar Malskat played an important part in the novel The Rat by Günter Grass.
INTERIOR DECORATION
St. Mary's Church was generously endowed with donations from the city council, the guilds, families, and individuals. At the end of the Middle Ages it had 38 altars and 65 benefices. The following mediaeval artefacts remain:
A bronze baptismal font made by Hans Apengeter (de) (1337). Until 1942 it was at the west end of the church; it is now in the middle of the chancel. It holds 406 litres (89 imperial gallons), almost the same as a Hamburg or Bremen beer barrel, which holds 405 litres (89 imperial gallons).
Darsow Madonna from 1420, heavily damaged in 1942, restored from hundreds of individual pieces, put back in place again in 1989
Tabernacle from 1479, 9.5 metres high, made by Klaus Grude (de) using about 1000 individual bronze parts, some gilded, on the north wall of the chancel
Winged altarpiece by Christian Swarte (c. 1495) with Woman of the Apocalypse, now installed behind the main altar
Bronze burial slab by Bernt Notke for the Hutterock family (1505), in the Prayer Chapel (Gebetskapelle) in the north ambulatory
Of the rood screen destroyed in 1942 only an arch and the stone statues remain: Elizabeth with John the Baptist as a child, Virgin and Child with Saint Anne , the Archangel Gabriel and Mary (Annunciation), John the Evangelist and St. Dorothy.
In the ambulatory, sandstone reliefs (1515) from the atelier of Heinrich Brabender (de), with scenes from the Passion of Christ: to the north, the Washing of the Feet and the Last Supper; to the south, Christ in the garden of Gethsemane and his capture. The Last Supper relief includes a detail associated with Lübeck: a little mouse gnawing at the base of a rose bush. Touching it is supposed to mean that the person will never again return to Lübeck – or will have good luck, depending on the version of the superstition.
Remains of the original pews and the Antwerp altarpiece (de) (1518), in the Lady Chapel (Singers' Chapel)
John the Evangelist, a wooden statue by Henning von der Heide (c. 1505)
St. Anthony, a stone statue, donated in 1457 by the town councillor Hermann Sundesbeke (de), a member of the Brotherhood of St. Anthony
Remains of the original gothic pews in the Burgomasters' Chapel in the southern ambulatory
The Lamentation of Christ, one of the main works of the Nazarene Friedrich Overbeck, in the Prayer Chapel in the north ambulatory
The choir screens separating the choir from the ambulatory are recent reconstructions. The walls that had been built for this purpose in 1959 were removed in the 1990s. The brass bars of the choir screens were mostly still intact, but the wooden parts had been almost completely destroyed by fire in 1942. The oak crown and frame were reconstructed on the basis of what remained of the original construction.
ANTWERP ALTARPIECE
The impressive Antwerp altarpiece (de) in the Lady Chapel (Singers' Chapel) was created in 1518. It was donated for the chapel in 1522 by Johann Bone, a merchant from Geldern. After the chapel was converted into a confessional chapel in 1790, the altarpiece was moved around the church several times. During the Second World War, it was in the Chapel of Indulgences (Briefkapelle) and thus escaped destruction. The double-winged altarpiece depicts the life of the Virgin Mary in 26 painted and carved scenes.Before 1869, the wings of the predella, which depict the legends of the Holy Kinship were removed, sawn to make panel paintings, and sold. In 1869, two such paintings from the private collection of the mayor of Lübeck Karl Ludwig Roeck (de) were acquired for the collection in what is now St. Anne's Museum. Two more paintings from the outsides of the predella wings were acquired by the Kulturstiftung des Landes Schleswig-Holstein (de) (Cultural foundation of Schleswig-Holstein) and have been in St. Anne's Museum since 1988. Of the remaining paintings, two are in the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart and two are in a private collection in Stockholm.
MEMORIALS
In the renaissance and baroque periods, the church space contained so many memorials that it became like a hall of fame of the Lübeck gentry. Memorials in the main nave, allowed from 1693, had to be made of wood, for structural reasons, but those in the side naves could also be made of marble. Of the 84 memorials that were still extant in the 20th century, almost all of the wooden ones were destroyed by the air raid of 1942, but 17, mostly stone ones on the walls of the side naves survived, some heavily damaged. Since these were mostly baroque works, they were deliberately ignored in the first phase of reconstruction, restoration beginning in 1973. They give an impression of how richly St. Mary's church was once furnished. The oldest is that of Hermann von Dorne (de), a mayor who died in 1594, a heraldic design with mediaeval echoes. The memorial to Johann Füchting (de), a former councillor and Hanseatic merchant who died in 1637, is a Dutch work of the transitional period between the Renaissance and Baroque times by the sculptor Aris Claeszon (de) who worked in Amsterdam. After the phase of exuberant cartilage baroque, the examples of which were all destroyed by fire, Thomas Quellinus introduced a new type of memorial to Lübeck and created memorials in the dramatic style of Flemish High Baroque for
the councillor Hartwig von Stiten (de), made in 1699;
the councillor Adolf Brüning (de), made in 1706;
the mayor Jerome of Dorne (de) (who died in 1704) and
the mayor Anton Winckler (de) (1707),
the last one being the only one to remain undamaged. In the same year, the Lübeck sculptor Hans Freese created the memorial for councillor Gotthard Kerkring (de) (who had died in 1705), whose oval portrait is held by a winged figure of death. A well-preserved example of the memorials of the next generation is the one for Peter Hinrich Tesdorpf (de), a mayor who died in 1723.
The Sepulchral Chapel of the Tesdorpf family contains a bust by Gottfried Schadowof mayor Johann Matthaeus Tesdorpf (de), which the Council presented to him in 1823 on the occasion of his anniversary as a member of the Council, and which was installed here in 1835. Among the later memorials is also the gravestone of mayor Joachim Peters (de) by Landolin Ohmacht (c. 1795).
THE FREDENHAGEN ALTARPIECE
The main item from the Baroque period, an altar with an altarpiece 18 metres high, donated by the merchant Thomas Fredenhagen (de) and made by the Antwerp sculptor Thomas Quellinus from marble and porphyry (1697) was seriously damaged in 1942. After a lengthy debate lasting from 1951 to 1959, Heinrich Meyer (de), the bishop at the time, prevailed, and it was decided not to restore the altar but to replace it with a simple altar of limestone, with a bronze crucifix made by Gerhard Marcks. Speaking of the historical significance of the altar, the director of the Lübeck Museum at the time said that it was the only work of art of European stature that the Protestant Church in Lübeck had produced after the Reformation.
Individual items from the altarpiece are now in the ambulatory: the Calvary group with Mary and John, the marble predella with a relief of the Last Supper and the three crowned figures, the allegorical sculptures of Belief and Hope, and the Resurrected Christ. The other remains of the altar and altarpiece are now stored over the vaulted ceiling between the towers. The debate as to whether it is possible and desirable to restore the altar as a major work of baroque art of European stature is ongoing.
STAINED GLAS
Except for a few remains, the air raid of 1942 destroyed all the windows, including the stained glass windows that Carl Julius Milde had installed at Saint Mary's after they were rescued from the St. Mary Magdalene Church (de) when the St. Mary Magdalene's Priory was demolished in the 19th century, and including the windows made by Professor Alexander Linnemann (de) from Frankfurt in the late 19th century. In the reconstruction, simple diamond-pane leaded windows were used, mostly just decorated with the coat of arms of the donor, though some windows had an artistic design.
The windows in the Singers' Chapel (Lady Chapel) depict the coat of arms of the Hanseatic towns of Bremen, Hamburg and Lübeck, and the lyrics of Buxtehude's Lübeck cantata, Schwinget euch himmelan (BuxWV 96).
The monumental west window, designed by Hans Gottfried von Stockhausen (de), depicts the Day of Judgment.
The window of the Memorial chapel (Gedenkkapelle) in the South Tower (which holds the destroyed bells), depicts coats of arms of towns, states and provinces of former eastern territories of Germany.
Both windows in the Danse Macabre Chapel (Totentanzkapelle), which were designed by Alfred Mahlau in 1955/1956 and made in the Berkentien stained glass atelier in Lübeck, adopt motifs from the Danse Macabre painting that was destroyed by fire in 1942. They replace the Kaiserfenster (Emperor's Window), which was donated by Kaiser Wilhelm II on the occasion of his visit to Lübeck in 1913. It was manufactured by the Munich court stained glass artist Karl de Bouché (de) and depicted the confirmation of the town privileges by Emperor Barbarossa.
In 1981–82, windows by Johannes Schreiter (de) were installed in the Chapel of Indulgences (Briefkapelle). Their ragged diamond pattern evokes not only the destruction of the church but also the torn nets of the Disciples (Luke 6).
In December 2002, the tympanum window was added above the north portal of the Danse Macabre Chapel after a design by Markus Lüpertz.
This window, like the windows by Johannes Schreiter in the Chapel of Indulgences (Briefkapelle), was manufactured and assembled by Derix Glass Studios in Taunusstein.
CHURCHYARD
Saint Mary's Churchyard (de), with its views of the north face of the Lübeck Town Hall (de ), the Kanzleigebäude (de), and the Marienwerkhaus (de) has the ambiance of a mediaeval town.
The architectural features include the subjects of Lübeck legends; a large block of granite to the right of the entrance was supposedly not left there by the builders but put there by the Devil.
To the north and west of the church, the courtyard is now an open space, mediaeval buildings having been removed. At the corner between Schüsselbuden (de) and Mengstraße (de) are the remaining stone foundations of the Maria am Stegel (de) Chapel (1415), which served as a bookshop before the Second World War. In the late 1950s, it was decided not to reconstruct it, and the remaining external walls of the ruins were cleared away. On Mengstraße, opposite the churchyard, is a building with facades from the 18th century: the clergy house known as die Wehde (de), which also gave its name to the courtyard that lies behind it, the Wehdehof.
The war memorial, created in 1929 by the sculptor Hermann Joachim Pagels (de) 1929 on behalf of the congregation of the church to commemorate their dead, is made of Swedish granite from Karlshamn. The inscription reads (in translation):
The congregation of St. Mary's
in memory of their dead
1914 1918
(to which was added after the Second World War)
and
1939 1945
MUSIC AT ST: MARY´S
Music played an important part in the life of St. Mary's as far back as the Middle Ages. The Lady Chapel (Singers' Chapel), for instance, had its own choir. After the Reformation and Johannes Bugenhagen's Church Order, the Lübeck Katharineum school choir provided the singing for religious services. In return the school received the income of the chapel's trust fund. Until 1802, the cantor was both a teacher at the school and responsible for the singing of the choir and the congregation. The organist, was responsible for the organ music and other instrumental music; he also had administrative and accounting responsibilities and was responsible for the upkeep of the building,.
MAIN ORGAN
St. Mary's is known to have had an organ in the 14th century, since the occupation "organist" is mentioned in a will from 1377. The old great organ was built in 1516–1518 under the direction of Martin Flor (de) on the west wall as a replacement for the great organ of 1396. It had 32 stops, 2 manuals and a pedalboard. This organ, "in all probability the first and only Gothic organ with a thirty-two-foot principal (deepest pipe, 11 metres long) in the western world of the time",[a] was repeatedly added to and re-built over the centuries. For instance, the organist and organ-builder Barthold Hering (de) (who died in 1555) carried out a number of repairs and additions; in 1560/1561 Jacob Scherer added a chest division with a third manual. From 1637 to 1641, Friederich Stellwagen carried out a number of modifications. Otto Diedrich Richborn (de) added three registers in 1704. In 1733, Konrad Büntung exchanged four registers, changed the arrangement of the manuals and added couplers. In 1758, his son, Christoph Julius Bünting (de) added a small swell division with three voices, the action being controllable from the breast division manual. By the beginning of the 19th century the organ had 3 manuals and a pedalboard, 57 registers and 4,684 pipes. In 1851, however, a completely new organ was installed – built by Johann Friedrich Schulze (de), in the spirit of the time, with four manuals, a pedalboard, and 80 voices, behind the historic organ case by Benedikt Dreyer, which was restored and added to by Carl Julius Milde. This great organ was destroyed in 1942 and was replaced in 1968 by what was then the largest mechanical-action organ in the world. It was built by Kemper & Son. It has 5 manuals and a pedalboard, 100 stops and 8,512 pipes; the longest are 11 metres (36 feet), the smallest is the size of a cigarette. The tracker action operates electrically and has free combinations; the stop tableau is duplicated.
Danse macabre organ (choir organ)
The Dance macabre organ (Totentanzorgel) was older than the old great organ. It was installed in 1477 on the east side of the north arm of the "transept" in the Danse Macabre Chapel (so named because of the Danse Macabre painting that hung there) and was used for the musical accompaniment of the requiem masses that were celebrated there. After the Church Reformation it was used for prayers and for Holy Communion services. In 1549 and 1558 Jakob Scherer added to the organ among other things, a chair organ (Rückpositiv), and in 1621 a chest division was added. Friedrich Stellwagen also carried out extensive repairs from 1653 to 1655. Thereafter, only minor changes were made. For this reason, this organ, together with the Arp Schnitger organ in St. James' Church in Hamburg and the Stellwagen Organ in St. James' Church (de) in Lübeck, attracted the interest of organ experts in connection with the Orgelbewegung. The disposition (de) of the organ was changed back to what it had been in the 17th century. But, like the Danse Macabre organ, this organ was also destroyed in 1942.
In 1955 the organ builders Kemper & Son restored the Danse Macabre organ in accordance with its 1937 dimensions, but now in the northern part of the ambulatory, in the direction of the raised choir. Its original place is now occupied by the astronomical clock. This post-War organ, which was very prone to malfunction, was replaced in 1986 by a new Danse Macabre organ, built by Führer Co. in Wilhelmshaven and positioned in the same place as its predecessor. It has a mechanical tracker action, with four manuals and a pedalboard, 56 stops and approximately 5,000 pipes. This organ is particularly suited for accompanying prayers and services, as well as an instrument for older organ music up to Bach.
As a special tradition at St Mary's, on New Year's Eve the chorale Now Thank We All Our God is accompanied by both
OTHER INSTRUMENTS
There used to be an organ on the rood screen, as a basso continuo instrument for the choir that was located there – the church's third organ. In 1854 the breast division that was removed from the Great Organ (built in 1560–1561 by Jacob Scherer) when it was converted was installed here. This "rood screen organ" had one manual and seven stops and was replaced in 1900 by a two-manual pneumatic organ made by the organ builder Emanuel Kemper, the old organ box being retained. This organ, too, was destroyed in 1942.
In the Chapel of Indulgences (Briefkapelle) there is a chamber organ originally from East Prussia. It has been in the chapel since 1948. It has a single manual and eight voices, with separate control of bass and descant parts. It was built by Johannes Schwarz in 1723 and from 1724 was the organ of the Schloßkapelle (Castle Chapel) of Dönhofstädt near Rastenburg (now Kętrzyn, Poland). From there it was acquired by Lübeck organ builder Karl Kemper in 1933. For a few years it was in the choir of St. Catherine's Church, Lübeck. Then, Walter Kraft brought it, as a temporary measure, to the Chapel of Indulgences at St. Mary's, this being the first part of the church to be ready for church services after the War. Today this organ provides the accompaniment for prayers as well as the Sunday services that are held in the Chapel of Indulgences from January to March.
ORGANISTS
Two 17th-century organists, especially, shaped the development of the musical tradition of St. Mary's: Franz Tunder from 1642 until his death in 1667, and his successor and son-in-law, Dieterich Buxtehude , from 1668 to 1707. Both were defining representatives of the north German organ school and were prominent both as organists and as composers. In 1705 Johann Sebastian Bach came to Lübeck to observe and learn from Buxtehude,[b] and Georg Friedrich Händel and Johann Mattheson had already been guests of Buxtehude in 1703. Since then, the position of organist at St. Mary's Church has been one of the most prestigious in Germany.
With their evening concerts, Tunder and Buxtehude were the first to introduce church concerts independent of religious services. Buxtehude developed a fixed format, with a series of five concerts on the two last Sundays of the Trinity period (i.e. the last two Sundays before Advent) and the second, third, and fourth Sunday in Advent. This very successful series of concerts was continued by Buxtehude's successors, Johann Christian Schieferdecker (1679–1732), Johann Paul Kunzen (de) (1696–1757), his son Adolf Karl Kunzen (de) (1720–1781) and Johann Wilhelm Cornelius von Königslöw.
For the evening concerts they each composed a series of Biblical oratorios, including Israels Abgötterey in der Wüsten [Israel's Idol Worship in the Desert] (1758), Absalon (1761) and Goliath (1762) by Adolf Kunzen and ''Die Rettung des Kindes Mose [The Finding of Baby Moses] and Der geborne Weltheiland [The Saviour of the World is born] (1788), Tod, Auferstehung and Gericht [Death, Resurrection and Judgment] (1790) , and Davids Klage am Hermon nach dem 42ten Psalm [David's Lament on Mount Hermon (Psalm 42)] (1793) by Königslöw.
Around 1810 this tradition ended for a time. Attitudes towards music and the Church had changed, and external circumstances (the occupation by Napoleon's troops and the resulting financial straits) made such expensive concerts impossible.
In the early 20th century it was the organist Walter Kraft (1905–1977) who tried to revive the tradition of the evening concerts, starting with an evening of Bach's organ music, followed by an annual programme of combined choral and organ works. In 1954 Kraft created the Lübecker Totentanz (Lübeck Danse Macabre) as a new type of evening concert.
The tradition of evening concerts continues today under the current organist (since 2009), Johannes Unger.
The Lübeck Boys Choir at St. Mary’s
THE LÜBECK BOYS CHOIR
has been at St. Mary’s since 1970. It was originally founded as the Lübecker Kantorei in 1948. The choir sings regularly at services on Sundays and religious festivals. The performance of the St John Passion on Good Friday has become a Lübeck tradition.
ST. MARY´S CHURCH TODAY
CONGREGATION
Since the establishment of Johannes Bugenhagen's Lutheran Church Order by the town council in 1531 St. Mary has been Protestant. Today it belongs to the North Elbian Evangelical Lutheran Church. Services are held on Sundays and Church festivals from 10 o'clock. From Mondays to Saturdays in the summer season and in Advent there is a short prayer service with organ music at noon (after the parade of the figures of the Astronomical Clock), which tourists and locals are invited to attend. Since 15 March 2010 there has been an admission charge of two euros for visitors.
ASTRONOMICAL CLOCK
The astronomical clock was built in 1561–1566. It used to stand in the ambulatory, behind the high altar but was completely destroyed in 1942. Only a clock dial that was replaced during a previous restoration remains, in St. Anne's Museum The new Astronomical Clock, which was installed on the East side of the Northern transept, in the Danse Macabre Chapel. It is the work of Paul Behrens, a Lübeck clockmaker, who planned it as his lifetime achievement from 1960 to 1967. He collected donations for it, made the clock, including all its parts, and maintained the clock until his death. The clock front is a simplified copy of the original. Calendar and planetary discs controlled by a complicated mechanical movement show the day and the month, the position of the sun and the moon, the signs of the zodiac (the thirteen astronomical signs, not the twelve astrological signs), the date of Easter, and the golden number.
At noon, the clock chimes and a procession of figures passes in front of the figure of Christ, who blesses each of them. The figures originally represented the prince-electors of the Holy Roman Empire; since the post-War reconstruction, they represent eight representatives of the peoples of the world.
CARILLON
After the War, a carillon with 36 bells was installed In the South Tower. Some of the bells came from St Catherine's Church in Danzig (now Gdańsk, Poland). On the hour and half-hour, choral melodies are played, alternating according to the season. Formerly the carillon was operated by a complicated electromechanical system of cylinders; the mechanism is now computer-controlled. At Christmas and Easter, the organist plays the clock chimes manually.
BELLS
The 11 historic bells of the church originally hung in the South Tower in a bell loft 60 metres high. An additional seven bells for sounding the time were made by Heinrich von Kampen (de) in 1508–1510 and installed in the flèche. During the fire in the air raid of 1942, the bells are reported to have rung again in the upwind before crashing to the ground. The remains of two bells, the oldest bell, the "Sunday bell" by Heinrich von Kampen (2,000 kg, diameter 1,710 mm, strike tone a0) and the tenor bell by Albert Benningk from 1668 (7,134 kg, diameter 2,170 mm, strike tone a0F#0), were preserved as a memorial in the former Schinkel Chapel, at the base of the South Tower The "Council and Children's Bell" made in 1650 by Anton Wiese (de), which used to be rung for the short prayer services before council meetings and for christenings, was given to Strecknitz Mental Home (de) in 1906 and was thus the only one of the historic bells to survive World War II. Today it hangs in the tower of what is now the University of Lübeck hospital.
The set of bells in the North Tower now consists of seven bells. It ranks among the largest and deepest-pitched of its kind in northern Germany. The three baroque bells originate from Danzig churches, (Gratia Dei and Dominicalis from St. John's (de) and Osanna from St. Mary's). After the Second World War, these bells from the "Hamburger bell cemetery" were hung in the tower as temporary replacement bells.
In 1951 the German Chancellor, Konrad Adenauer donated a new tenor bell. In 1985 three additional bells were made., completing the set. They have inscriptions referring to peace and reconciliation.
In 2005, the belfry was renovated. The steel bell frame from the reconstruction was replaced with a wooden one and the bells were hung directly on wooden yokes, so that the bells ring out with more brilliance.
This great peal is easily recognised because of the unusual disposition (intervals between the individual bells); the series of whole tone steps between bells 1–5 results in a distinctive sound with added vibrancy due to the tone of the historic bells.
DIMENSIONS
Total Length: 103 metres
Length of the middle nave: 70 metres
Vault height in the main nave: 38.5 metres
Vault height in the side naves: 20.7 metres
Height of the towers: 125 metres
Floor area: 3,300 square metres
WIKIPEDIA