Top 10 Most Popular Arches In The World
8. Victory Gate, Munich, Germany
Victory gate or siegestor is a triumphal arch located in the city of Munich, Germany. It was originally built to commemorate the bravery of Bavarian army for their success in Napoleonic war of liberation. But today victory gate served as a symbol of peace.
Victory gate was built between 1843 and 1852 by King Ludwing I of Bavaria. This arch have triumphal arch style, one large arch in the center and small arch on each side. There is also a chariot on the top of the arch which is drawn by four lions. It symbolize the victory of the army.
The Siegestor in Munich, is a three-arched triumphal arch crowned with a statue of Bavaria with a lion-quadriga.
The Siegestor is 21 meters high, 24 m wide, and 12 m deep. It is located between the Ludwig Maximilian University and the Ohmstraße, where the Ludwigstraße ends and the Leopoldstraße begins. It thus sits at the boundary between the two Munich districts of Maxvorstadt and Schwabing.
The gate was commissioned by King Ludwig I of Bavaria, designed by Friedrich von Gärtner and completed by Eduard Mezger in 1852. The marble quadriga was sculpted by Johann Martin von Wagner, artistic advisor to Ludwig and a professor at the University of Würzburg. Lions were likely used in the quadriga, instead of the more usual horses, because the lion was a heraldic charge of the House of Wittelsbach, the ruling family of the Bavarian monarchy.
The gate was originally dedicated to the glory of the Bavarian army. Today, the Siegestor is a monument and reminder to peace. After sustaining heavy damage in World War II it was to be demolished in July 1945, however, the gate was reconstructed and restored only partially, in a manner similar to the conservation of the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche in Berlin. The new inscription on the back side by Wilhelm Hausenstein reads Dem Sieg geweiht, vom Krieg zerstört, zum Frieden mahnend, «Dedicated to victory, destroyed by war, urging peace». In the early 21st century, the remaining statues were meticulously cleaned and restored.