WEIMAR
Sightseeing
History I
Sightseeing I
Practical I Hotels in Weimar
The
Goethe Museum . Johann Wolfgang von Goethe studied here and
wrote here his most famous work "Faust". The house had been given to him
by the Duke Carl Augustus. In the present-day museum one can see items
associated with Goethe and with other poets from the Enlightenment era
in Weimar. In the Park an der Ilm stands Goethe's first house in Weimar,
now known as the Garden House. It
stands in a pleasant park that Goethe helped designed, alongside the Ilm
river.
The
Stadtmuseum (Town Museum) is devoted to the history of
Weimar, but it also holds an interesting natural history collection. It
is housed in a Neo-Classical house, built in the late 18th century
for the publisher Justin Bertuch.
German National Theater,
where constitution of the Weimar Republic was written.
The building was completed in 1908 and the first performance was held
there on November 1, 1908. During World War II, the National Theater
building was used as an armament factory, beginning in 1944. The
famous statue of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich von
Schiller, Weimar's two great writers of classical literature, was
enclosed in a protective casing and
escaped
damage from the Allied bombing of Weimar on February 2, 1945, which
destroyed the building. The building was reconstructed and reopened
on February 8, 1948 with a performance of Goethe's Faust, his most
famous work. Between 1973 and 1975, the building was remodeled
according to a design by architect Richard Paulik.
The Bauhaus Museum
is devoted to the famous art school wich was founded in Weimar by
Walter Gropius in 1919 moved to Dessau in 1925 and later to Berlin
in 1933.
When
Weimar was founded around 1250, the main town square
was where the present Herderplatz is located, but as the town expanded
around 1300, a new market square was laid out in the present location.
Some of the buildings date back to the 16th century. On February 9,
1945, the market square was hit in an Allied bombing raid, and all the
buildings
on the north side were destroyed. The first picture below shows the bomb
damage; the former court pharmacy (Hofapotheke) with its distinctive bay
window is on the left. Rebuilding work began in 1988, and the buildings
were restored, as shown in the second picture below. Located in front of
the pharmacy is the town fountain
(Neptunbrunnen)
with a statue of Neptune.
The Schiller House
is now a museum. Friedrich Schiller wrote here his "Wilhelm Tell" and
spent the last years of his life here.
