Building Sandstones in Germany – Shaping Landscapes and Cultural Heritage

Abstract Sandstones are found close to the surface in large parts of central Germany and have been quarried and used there for many centuries. From a stratigraphic point of view, clastic sediments occur from the Cambrian to the Quaternary periods; the building sandstones mainly belong to the Upper Paleozoic and the Mesozoic. The use of sandstone has been documented since the Stone Age, with systematic quarrying beginning in south-western Germany with the Romans and in other regions at the end of the Middle Ages in the 11th /twelfth century. Current studies on building sandstone in Germany suggest that over the centuries there have been tens of thousands of quarries and extraction sites for building sandstone. In all these regions, the cultural landscapes are characterised by sandstone—the landscape and buildings merge to create a harmonious view. Sandstones can be found in secular buildings, in many walls, along paths and, of course, in representative buildings such as churches, monasteries, castles, town halls and later buildings from the industrial age such as railway stations, factory headquarters, etc. Some of these cultural landscapes extend along the rivers on which the sandstone was transported, especially to the northern parts of Germany. 15 of the 55 UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Germany consist mainly of sandstone and owe their special character to it. Sandstone also occurs to a lesser extent at 16 other UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The cultural heritage not only represent material, cultural, architectural and historical value, but are also part of what makes our ‘old’ continent of Europe – the ‘Museum of Europe’. Monument preservation in Germany takes these aspects into account and sets high standards for the material and professional preservation and restoration of these stone cultural assets. This is based on knowledge of the petrographic and petrophysical properties of sandstones as well as the history of their extraction and use. In a long-term project, the Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR) is systematically investigating building sandstones in Germany in collaboration with the geological surveys of the federal states as well as universities and institutions. The results are published for each federal state and are available to users in the field of monument preservation. A brief summary of the results of this comprehensive project to date is presented here. The results include a series of publications presenting all building sandstone deposits in Germany by federal state in a geological-stratigraphic context with their petrographic and petrophysical properties, as well as the results of research into historical quarrying and use, building sandstone and thin section collections in various institutions, data collections on historical quarries, analyses and other information, the development of a non-destructive method for analysing the provenance of building sandstones and, last but not least, the impetus for non-geologists to pay more attention to building sandstones and their provenance and features in buildings.