3 ms·

Huh... The Wikipedia link you provided states "Work restarted in the 19th century and was completed, to the original plan, in 1880." So it is technically comple

• pluma 11y ago
  Yeah, technically it was completed in 1880 but it was significantly damaged in WW2[0] and the stone used to construct it doesn't deal well with environmental factors (e.g. acidic rain and pigeon poop) so the cathedral has been undergoing year-round maintenance ever since (if not even before WW2). There's even a dedicated stone mason workshop beside the cathedral itself (the "Dombauhütte", which according to its website currently employs about 60 people). They have replaced a lot of the weathered parts with more resilient replicas. I'm not sure what they do when they have to replace entire statues but I've heard about smaller parts being presented as a special honour to individuals (similar to fragments of the Berlin Wall). [0]: Aerial photographs after WW2 gave rise to the urban legend that bomber pilots were instructed not to damage it and that it survived unscathed. Not only was there no such order, it would have been impossible to follow given the accuracies of bombing runs at the time. Until a decade ago there was a large piece of brick wall covering up some of the damage from WW2. In total, the Cathedral was hit by at least 70 bombs -- that its exterior didn't collapse should be attributed to its skilled architects rather than well-meaning Allied admirals or divine protection.