Friedenssäule

The Friedenssäule rises at the centre of Friedensplatz in Dortmund, aligned with the city hall built in 1989. Susanne Wehland created the public sculpture in 1989. Granite and bronze form its column, which reaches approximately eight and a half metres into the square. Large, gilded bronze letters encircle the shaft in several languages, including French, English, Hebrew, and Russian. Those languages refer to Dortmund’s partner cities and place international connections directly on the surface.

A flat relief covers the column with abstract human figures that interact, shake hands, and converse. Their gestures express the hope of peaceful coexistence across borders. An intervention called Architecture of War covered the sculpture with sandbags to expose peace’s fragility and the force of war imagery. Design students from Fachhochschule Dortmund created that installation, turning the familiar column into a stark image of threatened security. Against the city hall, the granite, bronze, gilded letters, and sandbags make political ideas visible at architectural scale.