Deutscher Dom

The Deutscher Dom on Gendarmenmarkt is not a cathedral in the ecclesiastical sense but a free-standing Baroque domed tower, added by Carl von Gontard between 1780 and 1785 to the neighbouring New Church on Frederick II's commission. It forms the pendant to the Franzoesischer Dom across the square and was meant, with its tall drum dome, as a Lutheran answer to the Huguenot congregation. Totally destroyed in 1945, the dome was rebuilt by 1996. Today it houses the Bundestag's permanent exhibition on the history of German parliamentary democracy - free, with a lift to the viewing terrace.