A Tourist Map of Weimar

Weimar, March 28, 2013

Sometimes maps look like something.  I still remember when somebody showed me how to do the map of Venice with my hands: you just place the thumb of your right hand between the thumb and index finger of your left and the Grand Canal magically appears, with Santa Maria della Salute at the tip of your left thumb and the Cannaregio on your right index.

When I first saw the map of Weimar, I couldn't help seeing it as a human figure, with the historic center as the body and the green spaces as the limbs.  The Ilm river runs north-south along the east side of Weimar.  The Park an der Ilm to the south makes one of the legs and when the river turns east, the park to the north makes one of the arms.  The cemetery to the south makes the other leg and the Weimarhallen-park--the one with the swimming pools--to the north makes the other arm.  At the heart of the city, most appropriately, is the Theater Square, with the famous statue of Goethe and Schiller shaking hands (yes, to be anatomically correct, the square occupies more or less the place of the liver.)  You wouldn't want the train station (at the top of the map) to be the head, but i would certainly make a nice hat.

I know, it sounds silly, but there is a long history of inscribing the human figure on the plans of buildings and cities, dating back at least to Francesco di Giorgio in the Renaissance.