Model of Nuremberg Old Town

Artists: Gustav Fischer, Alexander Hehl, Konrad Heisinger, Ludwig Köpf; Linden wood. In 1935, the Nuremberg City Construction Office was asked to commission a model of the Old Town. The preparations alone took months: drawings of façades had to be organized, blueprints obtained, and the Ohm Polytechnic School had its students make drawings of the entire city walls and the Castle. It took four experienced wood carvers more than four years to complete the 1:500-scale linden wood model. It documents in impressive detail the late-medieval texture of Nuremberg as it appeared shortly before the city was destroyed in the Second World War. Safely stored in the "Art Bunker" below the Castle, this model survived to commemorate how the best-preserved large medieval city in Germany once looked, while the real Nuremberg was reduced to ruins.