Day 10: Grossmünster
Northward rails to Zurich land upon the Limmat river, home to Grossmünster, a church said to be commissioned by Charlemagne. I was immediately thrown by the symmetry of the towers; it’s not normal for religious sites to stand so even. Typically, churches have asymmetry in their architecture, particularly in their towers. You can see this most notably in the Church of Our Lady before Týn in Prague (with towers named: Adam and Eve), and even in secular architecture like the Smithsonian Castle in Washington, D.C. The story deepens, as I found that the original north tower (photo left) was higher than its twin, made to hold the church bells and conforming to the natural style of Old Europe. By the fifteenth century the south tower was built up to match, then both originals irreversibly ruined after a fire in the late seventeen hundreds. Still today, the south and north towers differ by a few pieces; adorations, and an extra decorative lintel on the fourth block of the south tower (photo right). I once wrote a whole book on asymmetry (re: Left) with a large section devoted to this topic. Sometimes the asymmetry serves a purpose, but more often than not, it is meant to represent dichotomies (e.g. right/left, good/evil), or in the case of some eastern artifacts, the asymmetry is introduced as an error in design to represent our failing as human beings, respecting the sanctity and faultlessness of the divine.