The brothers Dominikus and Johann Baptist Zimmermann designed the Pilgrimage Church of Wies, the major work of both. Tears were reportedly seen on a dilapidated wooden figure of the Scourged Savior in 1738, and a pilgrimage began. A small chapel built in 1740 to house the statue proved too small, so Steingaden Abbey commissioned a new shrine. Construction ran from 1745 to 1754, and Dominikus lived nearby for the last eleven years of his life.
The style is Roman Catholic Rococo. The plan is an oval nave with a semicircular narthex, twin columns in front of the walls, and a long, deep choir. Johann Baptist Zimmermann made the stucco in the Wessobrunner tradition. Trompe-l'oeil ceilings seem to open onto an iridescent sky.
The church stands in the village of Wies, in the foothills of the Ammergau Alps in Upper Bavaria. UNESCO listed it in 1983, and an extensive restoration ran from 1985 to 1991.
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