Richters Cologne cathedral window, 2007

The painter, sculptor and photographer Gerhard Richter was born in Dresden in 1932, his adopted home today is Cologne. Gerhard Richter experiments in his art between realism and abstraction. His works are highly endowed worldwide. In 2006, he was honoured to redesign the window of the cross-portal facade of Cologne’s Dome. If you enter the Dome of Cologne from the west side and walk along the main aisle, you will see coloured glass windows to the right and left with motifs from the biblical history of the Catholic faith that did not come from Richter. Upon reaching the crossing portal, you can see the 113 m² window by Gerhard Richter on the right (see left picture). It is about 25 m high and consists of 11263 mouth-blown coloured glass panes of the edge length 97 x 97 mm. The coloured glass panels are assembled at random and consist of 72 different colours. The powerful colour glass window does not show any image structure at first. The completely different, worldly design of the window to those windows in the main aisle meets the visitor unexpectedly. In the search for a motif, one finds in the vertical division of the window mirror-image colour arrangements. The window can be divided into 6 vertical sections. The vertical area 3 is mirrored to the vertical area 1, the vertical area 6 is again mirrored to the vertical area 4 and the vertical area 5 is ultimately mirrored to the vertical area 2. The reflections extend over the entire window height. Despite many criticisms, the window was consecrated in 2007 by Archbishop Cardinal Meisner. If one observes the flow of tourists in the Cologne’s Dome, more people usually stand in front of Richter's window than in front of the others. (own text and own photography)

To enlarge the upper half of the window, please click on the window.


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