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Celebrations for the highest church tower in the world

May 29, 2015

The Ulm Minster is 125 years old on May 31. The town on the Danube will celebrate the church with the "Ulmer Weitblick" - a 1.8 million euro cultural program.

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Deutschland, Ulmer Münster
Image: picture-alliance/dpa

The festivities start to reach their climax this weekend. More than 400 musicians will congregate on May 29 and 30 for an open air concert in the cathedral square. The ensemble will take the audience on a musical journey through time, ranging from Mendelssohn's "Elijah" to Carl Orff and Charles Iyves. Thousands of visitors are expected to attend the event.

The town has been celebrating the anniversary since June 2014, with exhibitions, installations, art projects and events. A visitor favorite at the Minster is the current installation "Solar Equation" by the Canadian-Mexican media artists Rafael Lozano-Hemmer. Inside the church, a model of the sun hovers at a scale of 1:200 million. The movements on the surface of the virtual sun are calculated live.

May 31 has been declared "Day of the Tower", to celebrate the historic anniversary of the completion of the cathedral tower. It begins with a church service and is followed by a concert performance. Numerous guided tours traversing the Minster, from the rooftop to the cellar, are on offer and the Minster construction house is open to the public. It offers an insight into the work of the stonemasons.

On May 31, 1890, exactly 125 years ago the church was completed with the placement of the finial on top of the tower - the culmination of 513 years of construction. Since that time, Ulm has boasted the highest church tower in the world - at 161.53 meters.

at/ks