Panorama from the Spittlertor Tower

Bruno Weiss shot this
panorama in 1999 for the City Archives, based on the photos by Ferdinand
Schmidt.

Considering how severely
it was devastated in World War II, the Old Town appears to have remained
relatively intact. We owe this illusion of an almost unchanged cityscape today
to the reconstruction standards for adhering to historic street layouts and
building heights.

As ever, the Imperial
Castle and the towers of the city gates and churches rise above the rooftops.
The area outside the walls looks entirely different. Here we can get our
bearings only from the dome of the Opera House and the building at
Frauentorgraben No. 73 that formerly housed the Kammer-Lichtspiele movie
theater. The other buildings betray their nature as creations of the 1950s to
1990s. Above the sea of buildings rises the Plärrer high-rise, built to plans
by architect Wilhelm Schlegtendahl. It has taken over from the Spittlertor
tower as the anchor for panoramic photos. Ever since its completion, this has
been the main vantage point for taking 360-degree photos to document the city's
development.