void: Photos from Aachen 2008 (3): a Visual Guide to the Cathedral

[Original Post at my Blogs | My Blogs]

One of the recommended place to visit. It's located in the central area and though I passed through this building every day, only on the second last day (around 17:00) that I managed to enter it.

[Note: this blog includes only pictures essential for my story telling. More pictures can be found here.]

The Big Picture (plus Extremely Important Piece of Information)
Before we start with the visual guide, let's have a look at the Cathedral's schematic diagram:

As you admire the diagram, be informed that this diagram is the result of:

ultra-precision high-end scannings using a highly-sophisticated parallel dual-optical device with an 81-megapixel resolution, 120-degree vision, and a 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio.
The scanned raw images are then feed into...
a novel yet efficient integrated post processor which is capable of uncompromising noise separation, dispersed clustering, fuzzy regression analysis, high-degree meta-cognitive, adaptive dynamic inference, etc.
This will produce an in-memory abstract schematic diagram which will be...
projected as a persistent concrete schematic diagram using the provably high-tech plotting device which has a strongly optimum degree of freedom and is controlled through a network of multi-billion nano components.

The Exterior
Let us now start the virtual visual tour by firstly examining the four exterior sides:

The entrance is located at the left-side of the diagram.

The Interior: Palatine Chapel
As shown by the annotated diagram below, on the lower left of the Palatine Chapel (i.e. the circular area in the center) are two staffs selling photographing tickets. Since a chapel is used to holds masses, attendances are expected and hence, the chairs :). The next picture shows the view to the x-y-z direction.

In the location marked by x, there is Pala d'Oro (the golden altar) and Shrine of Mary (above the altar). The Shrine of Mary is said to store a number of relics. There is also a statue of Mary in location y. The location marked by z is the Gothic choir hall which is surrounded with colorful glass windows. Only guided tours are allowed to enter this choir hall. In the middle of the choir hall hangs a sun-shaped ornament with an illustration of Mother Mary and baby Jesus. The last picture shows area w.

The ceiling of the chapel is painted with an illustration of verses from the book of Revelation (I think).

The 8-side interior walls have carvings of Latin phrases. Unfortunately I took pictures of 7 sides only. As I recalled, I started shooting from the x direction followed by the other sides in a clock-wise direction (as per my mighty diagram).