Tour of Magdeburg

On June 5, Christoph Kretzschmann, a student from the Protestant Student Parish, gave us a tour of Magdeburg. He studied history, with an emphasis on the history of industry. We started at the former monastery of Our Lady (Kloster unser lieben Frauen). This is a very old church building, started during the Romanesque period.

We went directly from there to the Dom, the first Gothic church building built in Germany. Christoph noted that while they were building the apse of the church (the end behind the altar), and the cloister walk, the architects had not yet mastered the new Gothic style and the associated techniques, so some late Romanesque elements remain, especially the rounded arches.




Note the similarities between the arches in both pictures. By the way, doesn't MaryAnn look like a woman in a Vermeer painting?





After seeing so many really ancient buildings, Christoph took us on a tour of more recent structures, including a factory converted into an industrial museum, where he works. We then came to the Fachhochschule (the university), then ended up meeting Dr. Metzner, one of our professors here, on an island for dinner. There's an interesting set of buildings from the 1930's, including these rather impressive horses on columns...