Classical Weimar Germany

In the late 18th and early 19th centuries the small Thuringian town of Weimar witnessed a remarkable cultural flowering, attracting many writers and scholars, notably Goethe and Schiller. This development is reflected in the high quality of many of the buildings and of the parks in the surrounding area. The high artistic quality of the public and private buildings and parks in and around the town testify to the remarkable cultural flowering of the Weimar classical period. Enlightened ducal patronage attracted many of the leading writers and thinkers in Germany, such as Goethe, Schiller and Herder, to Weimar in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, making it the cultural centre of the Europe of the day. Weimar became the capital of the Duchy of Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach in 1572. For many years the painter Lucas Cranach the Elder worked in Weimar, where he died in 1553. This marked the start of a long period of growing cultural importance in which many painters, writers, poets, and philosopher lived in the city - Johann Sebastian Bach, Christoph Martin Wieland, Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Johann Gottfried Herder, Friedrich Schiller, Franz Liszt, Henry van de Velde, and Walter Gropius.

Continent: Asia

Country: Germany

Category: Cultural

Criterion: (III) (VI)

Date of Inscription: 1998

Goethe's House

Goethe's House: A Baroque town house was built in 1707-9 and underwent a number of alterations during Goethe's occupancy. The original interior furnishings are preserved in a number of rooms. Schiller's House: A simple late Baroque house built in 1777 incorporating part of a 16th-century outbuilding (the Mint). Most of the rooms are furnished as they were during the lifetime of the poet

Classical Weimar Germany

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City Church, Herder House and Old High School and City Castle

City Church, Herder House and Old High School: A three-aisled hall church with five bays and a pentagonal chancel and a west tower surmounted by an octagonal spire, containing an altar triptych by Lucas Cranach the Elder. The three-storey Herder House was built in the mid-16th century on the foundations of an earlier Renaissance structure. The Old High School, commissioned by Duke Wilhelm Ernst, was built in simple Baroque style.

City Castle: The present ensemble is an imposing slightly irregular four-winged building round a large courtyard. The decorations and furnishings of the interior are in classical style.

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