Outstanding Structures : Germany
Since 1945 numerous churches have been built in Germany. Worthy of special mention is the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedachtniskirche (Emperor William Memorial Church) in Berlin, which had been destroyed during the Second World War. Egon Eiermann fused the old ruin with a new steel construction with large glass sections (1963). Other remarkable churches are the massive Pilgrimage Church in Neviges (Gottfried Bohm, 1967), the Church of St. Boniface in Dortmund (Emil Steffann, 1954), St. Michael’s Church in Frankfurt am Main (Rudolf Schwarz, 1954), St. Pius’s Church in Cologne (Joachim Schurmann, 1961), Christ Church in Bochum (Dieter Oesterlen with Werner Schumann, 1959) and the Church of the Reconciliation in Dachau (Helmut Striffler, 1969).
As state and municipal duties increased, state parliaments and town halls needed more room and more sophisticated technical equipment. The State Parliament Building in Dusseldorf (Eller, Meier and Walter, 1992), the Town Hall in Bensberg (Gottfried Bohm, 1964), the Stadthalle in Germering near Munich (Auer & Weber, 1993) and the Music and Congress Hall in Liibeck (von Gerkan, Marg and Partners, 1994) are but a few outstanding examples of the bold self-assurance demonstrated by state and municipal bodies. The new plenary chamber of the German Bundestag in Bonn (Behnisch and Partners, 1993) is impressive evidence of contemporary architects’ use of glass as a primary building material.