Can a place contribute to reconciliation? Of course, first and foremost it is people who keep memories alive and work together towards a peaceful future. In some cases, however, a building can also become a place of hope, a symbol of the transition from the past to the future and the central stage for current events.
Reims Cathedral is such a place. Nowhere else is Franco-German history as concentrated as it is in this church β a history of enmity and a history of friendship. German soldiers took the cathedral under heavy shelling β fully aware that the building was a national landmark. For centuries, the kings of France had been crowned there. The attack, which set the roof of this masterpiece of Gothic architecture on fire, served the sole purpose of humiliating the enemy.
In those early days of the First World War, Reims thus came to epitomise the barbarism and wanton destructiveness of war. Some 17 years later, Reims began gradually to transform itself from a symbol of horror into a place of healing. Beyond such grand political gestures, the paths of the two countries have also crossed in the cathedral in recent times. It is hard to imagine anything more symbolic: a German being given the opportunity to immortalise himself in this place that the French people associate with such pain and such violation, a place where the senselessness of war is just as obvious as in nearby Verdun with its seemingly endless lines of gravestones.
Imi Knoebel, it would appear, made no attempt to show humility in his work. They light up the room and give a sense of disruption; they are at once beautiful and unsettling. Knoebel chose powerful nuances of red, yellow and blue for the individual elements. Light pervades the interior of the cathedral as if through burning fragments of glass.
All the same, many people questioned whether it is appropriate to place a modern, unashamedly colourful and highly individual work in a church as steeped in history as Reims Cathedral is β especially a work that is so far removed from church art. Three panes designed by Marc Chagall occupy a central place in the expansive church at the end of the nave. In soft blue tones, they portray stories from the Old and New Testaments.
