Rebuilding Dresden

Collapsed in a heap of red-hot rubble on the morning of February 15th, 1945, Dresden’s celebrated Frauenkirche – the Church of Our Lady – is rising again, stone by treasured stone. The great Protestant structure, originally built in the mid-eighteenth century, had miraculously survived two days and nights of one of history’s most comprehensive bombardments, but ultimately gave way to the thousand-degree-centigrade heat generated in the vicinity. The interior’s eight sandstone pillars supporting the famously colossal stone dome exploded; the outer walls shattered and 5,800 tons of stone plunged to earth, penetrating the massive floor as it fell, and the building vanished from Dresden’s skyline.