Imperial Germany
After 1871 united Germany built parliaments, town halls, stations and monuments in every historical style, and Ludwig II of Bavaria built his dream castles.
Neuschwanstein, begun in 1869, is a medieval castle seen through Wagner’s operas, with modern technology behind its façades. Cologne Cathedral was completed in 1880, and Paul Wallot’s Reichstag in Berlin in 1894.
Towards the end of the century Jugendstil, named after the magazine Jugend, sought new forms, and the artists’ colony on the Mathildenhöhe in Darmstadt presented whole houses as works of art.