Wies church

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**Pilgrimage Church of Wies**^a
**UNESCO World Heritage Site**

State Party	Germany
Type	Cultural
Criteria	i, iii
Identification	#271
Region^b	Europe and North America
Inscription History
Formal Inscription:	1983 7th Session
a Name as officially inscribed on the WH List b As classified officially by UNESCO

The pilgrimage church of Wies (German: Wieskirche) is an oval rococo church, designed in the late 1740s by Dominikus Zimmermann, who spent the last eleven years of his life in a nearby dwelling. It is located in the foothills of the Alps, the Steingaden municipality of the Weilheim-Schongau district, Bavaria, Germany.

In 1738 tears were seen on a dilapidated wooden figure of the Scourged Saviour. This miracle resulted in a pilgrimage rush to see the sculpture. In 1740 a small chapel was built to house the statue, but it was soon realized that the building would be too small for the number of pilgrims it attracted, and thus Steingaden Abbey decided to commission a separate shrine.

In contrast to the riotous interior, the exterior of the church does not display the ostentatious theatricality and striving for effect typical of that time.

Construction took place between 1745 and 1754, and the interior was decorated in stuccowork in the tradition of the Wessobrunner School. "Everything was done throughout the church to make the supernatural visible. Sculpture and murals combined to unleash the divine in visible form"^[1]. The church, commonly regarded as Zimmermann's final masterpiece, was secularized in the beginning of the 19th century. Subsequently, protests of local farmers saved this jewel of rococo architecture and design from being sold and demolished. The Wieskirche was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1983 and underwent massive restoration in 1985-91.