Towers and Copper Domes
Some of the features of the landscapes and cityscapes I found especially enchanting in Germany were the extraordinary copper domes that are everywhere.
It seemed that every small village we passed through had at least one church or town square with a tower with an exotic copper dome on it. These were a real inspiration for me because of the recent work we’re been doing with copper domes ourselves. (see our new page on Domes, Lanterns & Skylights in the Our Portfolio section.)
Some of the constructions were of more or less familiar shapes though frequently quite ornate but some of them were so exotic, I could not help wondering at their origin or inspiration. There were also many fine examples of Romanesque and Baroque architecture which I found particularly interesting.
Here are some of the pictures I took. Some are very poor quality because they were taken from a moving vehicle; however I wanted to show them anyway because they were so unusual.
This tower with its copper bell shaped roof is a good example of one of the more recognizable forms. It has a great shape and proportions. Do a quick calculation and see if you can get a sense of the height of that steeple finial! We’ve built some of these recently though not as large.
Now these are what I mean by unusual. Who would have ever thought up a shapes like this, much less try to build them?
This one was very strange to me. The picture is really poor but you can get a sense of the unusual shape. The next picture shows how it rises above everything else in this small village.
This one is a very typical shape in the part of Germany I was traveling through. I can just imagine the fun someone must have had going around designing and creating these fantastic structures.
Here’s an interesting roof shape from the Prince Bishops medieval residence in Wurtzburg. This one is shingled instead of clad with copper, which I think would be even harder to do. You’d have to make sure the shingles stayed in place even when applied almost upside down and that it wouldn’t leak for the next several centuries.
This is a small Romanesque chapel with a copper dome.
And this, a small Baroque chapel with a much more ornate copper dome, also in Wurtzburg.
This was a very typical shape seen all over the region.
This copper dome roof sits on top of what must be a very cool room on the inside.
This unusual building is actually a crane used some time ago to unload the river barges that are still active on the rivers throughout the region today. It sits alongside the Main River (pronounced Mayan) along which runs a lovely river walk and must be the forerunner of the large cargo cranes seen today at every seaport in the world. The top of the building, which is the copper clad dome, rotates and the arms of the crane are made out of large wood members clad with copper sheet metal.
Alan