Aachen Cathedral
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How it came to be
Aachen was a Frankish royal estate that had been used as a spa since the 1st century, and Charlemagne made it his favourite residence. In the 790s he began building a palace chapel together with the rest of the palace. Its construction is credited to Odo of Metz.
The chapel is an octagon crowned by a dome, and the inner octagon measures 14.46 m across. Charlemagne probably had antique columns brought from Rome and Ravenna. He was buried in the chapel in 814, and from 936 to 1531 thirty-one German kings were crowned there.
After Charlemagne was canonised in 1165, pilgrims poured in, and in 1355 a Gothic choir hall was added. This two-part glass chapel was consecrated on the 600th anniversary of his death. The cathedral was heavily damaged in the Second World War, but its basic structure survived. It was inscribed as a World Heritage site at the second session of the World Heritage Committee in 1978.
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