St. Stephens Cathedral - Vienna`s Most Important Landmark

Image Source: @mers

It is the pride of the City of Vienna... St. Stephen´s Cathedral otherwise known as STEPHANSDOM is the most important religious building located in the heart of the city and dubbed as the mother church of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Vienna. Its initial structures, originally an unfinished church in Romanesque form was devoted to St. Stephen in 1147. It was Rudolf IV (1339-1365), a Habsburg Duke, who initiated its rebuilding in Gothic Form, so that the extension would lead to the Church´s becoming a Cathedral.

Bird´s eye view of the Cathedral (front and back)

For purposes of showing you the complete front and back structure of the Cathedral , I used superb images taken by the photographer ©Bwag so you can see the whole building from a bird´s eye view. From the outside, the Steffl tower, a spire with 137 meters high was also built in Gothic style and its cupola had been renovated and gold plated using a helicopter.

The roof located at the back of the Cathedral facing south ( see below), had been renovated with colorful tiles and depicted the Habsburg Eagle emblems. You can see that part of the Dome had still dark colors. The sandstone used for building the cathedral aged and had darkened after centuries of existence. The renovation has been going on over decades. When I came to Vienna in the 80s, they have begun the special clean-up which is ongoing until now.

The Interior of Stephansdom ...

This image below shows the aisle to the main altar which had been constructed in Baroque style. The columns were beautifully made with marble. Below the floor of the cathedral are tombs/crypt of nobles, important people , emperors , princes, queens ,etc and even some of the organs of these nobilities were stored in jars in the ducal crypt. The catacomb housed eleven thousands of skulls and bones of people who died of the bubonic plague. And they can be seen thru a guided tour, entrance of which is around 5.50 Euros. I have witnessed the bones and skulls that were piled on top of the other and the place looked so creepy.

The Cathedral was heavily damaged in the last days of the World War II because it was bombarded, particularly the roof. Right after the war ended in 1945, the locals helped in its restorations.

My images taken in various occasions....

I worked with 3 private companies that have offices in the city center we call "Innenstadt". Over the years, in the course of lunchbreaks, way to the underground stations, I always passed by the Stephansplatz (the Plaza of the Cathedral) and every time, I took photos of the Cathedral. So here are some of those images taken using phone cameras.

GIF by @gremayo