City Icons – stones, that mean the world
Title: City Icons – stones, that mean the world
Author: David Schnitzer
Time: Summer Semester 2024
Tutors: Prof. Dr. Richard Woditsch, Prof. Volker Halbach
Thesis: Master
A lot has happened in the heart of Nuremberg. Emperors and dictators have left their mark. There were imperial regalia, the Golden Bull, and several waves of the plague. Nuremberg’s city center was once a bustling trade hub, later became completely insignificant—was almost entirely destroyed, and eventually rebuilt. The inner city has been a center of life, a political stage, a theater of war, a place of leisure, and much more.
What is considered important or unimportant divides the city’s society. Buildings are spotlighted or demolished. Some people admire the medieval past, others the post-war architecture, while still others are drawn to entirely different things—or nothing at all. Alongside these personal narratives of the past, faith in the free market further complicates the tangled story of Nuremberg’s city center. The meanings attached to the stones of the historic core freeze its appearance in a state that no longer meets the needs of a modern city.
It is time for new narratives.
