April 24: Magdeburg – Burg

Hundertwasser Building called the Green Citadel of Magdeburg

Austrian artist/architect Friedensreich Hundertwasser (1928-2000) created a colourful and variegated building that featured golden balls, rooms with uneven perspective and trees on the roof. He felt that a building should be an “oasis” for humanity and nature within a sea of rational houses. Nearby are some of the rational buildings—the few buildings left over from the bombings of WWII and the ersatz houses from the DDR that were built when money was tight and the need for housing was great.

The Monastery of Our Lady (Kloster unser lieben Frauen)

The oldest structure in Magdeburg is the Monastery of Our Lady which Archbishop Gero founded in 1017. The church structures went through a variety of renovations to accommodate a nunnery. In 1974 the final renovation turned the structure into an art museum. In one photo I’m sitting in the well house in the inner yard of the nunnery. There was also a concert hall in the facility named after Magdeburg’s composer son, Telemann. The huge ceramic constructions in another photo are part of the contemporary shows in the galleries. In the deep bowels of this building we saw some extraordinary wooden carvings. Even though some of the carvings were made for churches over 500 years ago, their unique faces and expressions captured our attention.