Thursday Doors: Berliner Dom

Thursday Doors was on vacation too, but it’s back now, with a fascinating post about artist Maud Lewis, and the 1-room cottage that she lived in and turned into a studio. As promised, my Thursday Doors are going to be about my recent trip to Germany and the British Isles.

In Germany we started out in Berlin. I lived in West Berlin as a teenager in 1983, and I have already posted a couple of then vs now posts: 10316 days (about the Berlin Wall), and Thursday “Tors”: Brandenburg.

A lot of stairs for not much door!

The Berliner Dom, or Berlin Cathedral, had not been on my radar screen as a particularly joyful, beautiful, or even dramatic place. Lacking the romance of Notre Dame, the pagentry of Westminster Abbey, or the artistic genius of the Sistine Chapel, the Berliner Dom was just another fancy old building, dingy and always under construction. This photo, taken through a tour bus window, sums it up. Rows of leafless trees and a crane under a blackened dome complete the somber picture.

I wrote “East Berlin Cathedral” on the back of this Kodak Instamatic photo in March, 1983

And I have to say, our recent visit didn’t completely dispel the aura of dark severity that surrounds this place for me. The sky was still cloudy and construction remains a fact of life in contemporary Berlin. But the Dom itself has become more open and welcoming.

Eingang (entrance)

The doors downstairs are quite diverse, some with glass:

Some with marble:

And the interior above the doors, which I never saw on my 1983 tour of East Berlin, is strikingly ornate and beautiful.

As a musician, I wanted a picture of the 1905 Sauer Organ, which organist and blogger Dr. Jens Korndörfer terms “one a few choice organs in the world whose encounter is a life changing experience.”

The 1905 Sauer Organ

There are some rather boring wooden doors too, probably to offices:

And side-chapel doors, adorned with gold and light:

I thought it all got a bit more adventurous when we went upstairs to the dome itself. Here is where you could get lost looking for a way out.

Or where you might find a hunchback lurking around the corner.

Or some bees. Yes, this is really a thing! “Berlin is buzzing!” to call attention to the importance of pollinators.

Beehive on roof of Berliner Dom

There is also something very neat about being up near the roof statues that look so ethereal from below. It’s like being backstage before the show and seeing all the makeup being put on.

For example, this angel clearly needs a smaller viola. If she keeps playing like that she’s going to get tendonitis in her left arm, or worse!

I approached a security guard on the roof to take our picture. When I asked him in German, he lost his severe, dour look, and happily did us the favor.

Thursday Doors is a weekly feature allowing door lovers to come together to admire and share their favorite door photos from around the world. Feel free to join in on the fun by creating your own Thursday Doors post and then sharing it, between Thursday morning and Saturday noon (North American Eastern Time), on the linky list at Norm 2.0’s blog. 

Follow my trip with this and previous posts:

July 20, 2018: Berlin Walk

June 13, 2018: Thursday “Tors”: Brandenburg

June 7, 2018: Germany