Facade renovation

Berlin Cathedral is one of Berlin's most important landmarks and one of the city's most visited sights. With its central location at the entrance to Museum Island, directly opposite the newly built Humboldt Forum, the cathedral attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors from all over the world every year.

However, the facade of the building, which dates back to 1905, is badly damaged and urgently needs extensive restoration work.

In recent decades, crusts have formed on the facade, sculptures and decorations. Soot, rubber abrasion and dust in particular are constantly settling on and in the natural stone. Air pollutants combine with rainwater to form acids that penetrate the stone and slowly decompose it. As a result, encrustations form on the surface of the stone, which can be seen as grey to black layers. These crusts act like a shell, preventing natural moisture from circulating and keeping the stone open to diffusion. To make matters worse, further moisture penetrates into the stone through the joints, which are usually no longer present or severely cracked. This causes additional damage to the sandstone. The substance behind it is also soaked through, so that the retaining structure of the suspended, approx. 30 cm thick sandstone facade corrodes, leading to further damage.

The high financial sums required to save the facade, figures and architectural decoration of Berlin Cathedral from further loss of the surfaces and artistic decoration cannot be raised by the cathedral community alone. The building budget is already stretched to the limit in the coming years due to planned projects and ongoing maintenance measures. Without supporters and funding for the facade restoration, the loss of substance of the surfaces will become ever greater and the outstanding stonemasonry work of the early 20th century will be irretrievably lost.

The restoration of the cathedral's facade is not only urgently required for reasons of monument protection and safety. In addition to the buildings of the Prussian Cultural Heritage on Museum Island, the Humboldt Forum will open in 2019 in the immediate vicinity of the Berlin Cathedral and on the former site of the Berlin City Palace. The partially reconstructed baroque facade of the sublime building currently appears in bright colors. Due to its location and 500-year history, the cathedral is still closely linked to the Berlin Palace. King Frederick I, who commissioned the original baroque facade of the palace, is buried in the Hohenzollern crypt beneath the cathedral. However, the contrast between the brightly shining palace and the gray-black sandstone of Berlin Cathedral could not be greater.