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painting, furniture design and sculpture. Critics claimed Bauhaus was too functional and impersonal, relying too heavily on cubist and constructivist forms. But any visit to the Bauhaus Building in Dessau, where the institute was based after 1925, or the nearby Meisterhäuser (Master Craftsmen’s Houses; ), where teachers from the school lived (such as painters Kandinsky and Klee), instantly reveals just how much the avant-garde movement pioneered modern architecture. In Berlin, the Bauhaus Archive/Museum of Design, which Gropius designed himself in 1964, is a must-see. Also see Design for Life.

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UNESCO WORLD HERITAGE SITES IN GERMANY

Following is a list of Germany’s fabulous treasures and the years in which their Unesco status was declared:

Aachen Dom (Cathedral; 1978; Click here)

Augustusburg and Falkenlust castles in Brühl (1984; Click here)

Bamberg (1993; Click here)

Bauhaus sites in Weimar and Dessau (1996; Click here and Click here)

Berlin’s Museumsinsel (Museum Island; 1999; Click here) and Siedlungen der Berliner Moderne (Berlin Modernism Housing Estates; 2008)

Bremen Rathaus and Rolandstatue (2004; Click here)

Classical Weimar (1998; Click here)

Collegiate Church, Castle and Old Town of Quedlinburg (1994; Click here)

Cologne Dom (1996; Click here)

Garden kingdom of Dessau-Wörlitz (2000; Click here)

Goslar Altstadt and mines of Rammelsberg (1992; Click here and Click here)

Hildesheim’s Dom and St Michaeliskirche (1985; Click here)

Kloster Maulbronn (1993; Click here)

Lorsch Abbey and Altenmünster (1991; Click here)

Lübeck (1987; Click here)

Luther memorials in Eisleben and Lutherstadt Wittenberg (1996; Click here and Click here)

Messel Pit fossil site (1995; Click here)

Muskauer Park in Bad Muskau (2004; Click here)

Potsdam’s parks and palaces (1990; Click here)

Regensburg (2006; Click here)

Reichenau Island (2000; Click here)

Speyer’s Kaiserdom cathedral (1981; Click here)

Trier’s Roman monuments, Dom and Liebfrauenkirche (1986; Click here)

Upper Germanic-Rhaetian Limes (2005; Click here)

Upper Middle Rhine Valley (Oberes Mittelrheintal; 2002; Click here)

Völklinger Hütte ironworks (1994; Click here)

Wadden Sea (2009; Click here and Click here)

Wartburg castle (1999; Click here)

Wieskirche, Wies’ pilgrimage church (1983; Click here)

Wismar and Stralsund historic centres (2002; Click here and Click here)

Würzburg’s Residenz and Court Gardens (1981; Click here)

Zollverein colliery complex in Essen (2001; Click here)

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The Nazis shut down the Bauhaus school in 1932 and rediscovered the pompous and monumental. One of the most successful attempts was the 1934 Olympiastadion Berlin (Berlin Olympic Stadium; ), designed by Werner March (1894–1976). In time for the FIFA World Cup 2006, the ageing stadium was rejuvenated with new roofing, restoration of original materials, and the lowering of the playing field to intensify the atmosphere.

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Erich Mendelsohn and the Architecture of German Modernism by Kathleen James zooms in on Mendelsohn’s expressionist buildings in Berlin and Frankfurt.

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The monumental efforts of another political persuasion are captured attractively today in the buildings that line Berlin’s (former East German) Karl-Marx-Allee. Yet another highlight that outlived the country that created it is the 368m-high TV Tower on Alexanderplatz, built in 1969. One structure that was much less successful – and has survived history only in fragments – is that most potent symbol of the Cold War, the Berlin Wall.

Experimental design took off in the 1960s in Düsseldorf with slender Thyssenhaus (1960), designed by Hubert Petschnigg (1913–1997), which inspired Tel Aviv’s Eliyahu House. In 1972 Munich was graced with its splendid tent-roofed Olympiastadion, which visitors can today scale with a rope and snap hook or abseil down for an architectural kick of the hair-raising sort. In the meantime, Bayern-München football team has sailed over to the Allianz Arena, a remarkable rubber-dinghy-like translucent object that will please football