Dominikanerkirche, Baroque church in Münster, Germany
The Dominikanerkirche is a baroque church on Salzstrasse in central Münster, built from 1705 to 1725 to designs by Lambert Friedrich Corfey. Its red brick body has a two-storey light sandstone entrance facade with Doric columns and statues of Dominic and Thomas Aquinas in side niches. A dark dome with a lantern and golden cross rises over the crossing, and a square brick tower with a segmented cupola stands to the right.
The church was built in the early 18th century by architect Lambert Friedrich Corfey as part of a Dominican monastery. When secularization came in the early 19th century, the building lost its original religious role and was gradually adapted for other uses.
Since 2018 the crossing has held Gerhard Richter's Zwei graue Doppelspiegel für ein Pendel: a 48-kilogram brass sphere on a 29-metre cable swings over a floor plate 5.6 metres across, ringed by twelve divisions, which turns once in about 30 hours beneath it. Mirrors hung on the crossing walls throw back the pendulum and the onlookers, drawing visitors into the work. The installation cost 650,000 euros, largely covered by third-party funds.
The church stands at the corner of Salzstrasse and Julius-Voos-Gasse, about 130 metres south-east of St Lamberti. It was profaned in 2017, so it no longer holds regular services and has no fixed opening days; access depends on events or the university parish. The surviving monastery wall adjoins the north-west corner.
One of the bells hanging in the north tower was cast in 1670, which makes it older than the church itself. It still rings today and is one of the oldest bells still in use in the city.
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