Worpswede (Northern Low Saxon: Worpsweed) is a municipality in the district of Osterholz, in Lower Saxony, Germany.

[citation needed] Moor commissioner Jürgen Christian Findorff carried out the construction of Lutheran Church of Zion (German: Zionskirche), following the plans of Johann Paul Heumann, Hanoveran court architect of King and Elector George II Augustus of Great Britain and Hanover.

Its else rather modest interior is beautified by a typical Protestant Kanzelaltar, combining pulpit and altar table, created in Rococo forms.

It bears the Tetragrammaton יהוה in a top medaillon and to the left of the pulpit the king's ornamented initials GR (Georgius Rex, hidden on the photo by a painting).

[citation needed] There are heads of cherubim by Clara Westhoff and floral ornaments by Paula Modersohn-Becker at the pendentives and the columns, connecting to the ceiling.

It was designed after plans of Findorff and attracts many visitors because of its elevated location on Weyerberg and due to the graves preserved there.

[citation needed] In 1884 Mimi Stolte, the daughter of a shopkeeper in Worpswede, met Fritz Mackensen, a young student of arts, while she was staying with her aunt in Düsseldorf.

Other artists came, for example the writers and poets Gerhard Hauptmann, Thomas Mann, and Rainer Maria Rilke who was married to the sculptor Clara Westhoff.

[citation needed] Fritz Mackensen remained a good friend of Mimi Stolte's family to the end of his life.

Since the growing industrialization made it necessary to find new ways of transporting goods and all sorts of materials, the idea came up to build a railway through the Teufelsmoor-area.

In 1895 Vogeler bought a cottage and planted many birch trees around it, which gave the house its new name: Barkenhoff (Low German for Birkenhof, literally translated Birch-Tree-Cottage).

He left his former way of painting romantic scenes and started to make proletarian content the center of his work.

As during the time of Martha herself, it contains a museum, a boarding-house, a weaving-mill, and offers different cultural events such as exhibitions, concerts of songs, etc.

Many buildings in Worpswede have been built by him: examples include the Lower Saxony Stone (Niedersachsenstein), Kaffee Verrückt, Grosse Kunstschau and his own house Hinterm Berg.

The building, which caused quite a stir because of its unusual igloo shape, received the name "Cheese Bell" by the inhabitants of Worpswede.

[citation needed] The main idea for the igloo had already been expressed by Taut at the Deutscher Werkbund exhibition in 1914, inspired by the Glass Pavilion.

The Chimney of the igloo forms the main axis, around which the stairs wind up to individual chambers, similar in appearance to a snail shell.

In the late 1920s, while Bruno Taut was working on the "Hufeisensiedlung" Britz in Berlin, he repeatedly visited the Worpswedian garden planner Leberecht Migge.

The original furniture did not remain intact, thus the association “Friends of Worpswede” presents not only traditional but also modern arts and crafts works, such as rustic furniture, chairs made by Bernhard Hoetger and cupboards made by Heinrich Vogeler, including an arms cupboard of the pacifist.

[citation needed] The garden, a disarrangement of wall fragments and grotto buildings, is also a draft of Koenemann, which is most likely inspired by Bernhard Hoetger.