1989: the Meissen Cathedral is no more than a »half-ruin«, which rises from a castle on a hill overlooking the Elbe River thirty kilometers from Dresden. The church’s facade is cracked. Soot, gypsum and hydrocarbons have penetrated its structure, residue of the »brown coal«-based industry of the former Deutsche Demokratische Republik.

One of the most important German buildings of Gothic antiquity was threatened with collapse. Shortly after German reunification, the very existence of many valuable cultural monuments in the »new federal states« was endangered. With an emergency rescue program, the Board of Trustees of the Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt (DBU) provided around 45 million Euros in 1991 for measures to secure historically important cultural heritage sites.

The grant measures for restoration of the western tower structure of the Meissen Cathedral involved a sum of some 2.2 million Euros. Stones were solidified and replaced, structural cracks filled, and the anchor plates restored. Today the Meissen Cathedral stands as an example of the DBU’s commitment in the area of protecting our cultural inheritance.

Surviving the war only to be destroyed by acid rain

The DBU supported other model projects, like the restoration of two Gothic terracotta figures and the rehabilitation of the cathedral’s largest bell, the Johannesglocke. The 7.8-ton bronze bell, made in 1929, is among the most richly-tooled bells in the world. As air pollution reached its high point in the mid-1970s, part of the crown broke and fell into the belfry. After an emergency restoration, the bell’s original sound had not been restored. As part of a model project, the artistic bell crown, which portrays the four evangelists, was successfully remodeled and refitted. Some 20 years after the first DBU grant to the Meissen Cathedral, the bell is today once again ringing in its original rich tone.

Project Operation:

Dom zu Meißen
Hochstift Meißen
Domplatz 7
01662 Meißen
Telefon 03521|452490
info@dom-zu-meissen.de
www.dom-zu-meissen.de

Dombaumeister Günter Donath
Markt 14
01723 Wilsdruff
Telefon 035204|40113
baubuero@architekt-donath.de
www.architekt-donath.de

Cooperation Partner:
Europäisches Kompetenzzentrum für Glocken – ProBell
Hochschule Kempten
www.probell.net


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