Wismar, a port, shipbuilding and industrial town, lies in Wismar Bay, which is sheltered by the island of Poel. The old town is a gem of medieval architecture.
On the east side of Wismar's square is the building known as the Alter Schwede (c. 1380), Wismar's oldest surviving burgher's house, and occupied since 1878 by a restaurant. The facade is charming, with its Gothic stepped gables articulated by pillars and relieved by openings and its glazed brick masonry.
Address: Alter Schwede Wismar, Am Markt 22, D-23966 Wismar, Germany
In the large Wismar Marktplatz (area 1 hectare/2.5 acres) stands the neo-classical Town Hall (1817-19), designed by the court architect, Georg Barca. The courtroom in the west wing and the vaulted cellars survive from an earlier (14th C.) building.
On the southeast side of the Markt in Wismar is the Wasserkunst (by Philipp Brandin, 1580-62), a water tower in Dutch Renaissance style with a bell-shaped copper dome borne on twelve pillars. It supplied the town with water until 1897.
Also in the Markt are a number of handsome gabled houses of the 17th and 18th centuries.
Of its medieval fortifications Wismar has preserved the Late Gothic Water Gate (mid 15th C.) on the Old Harbour, now occupied by the Club Maritim, and some remains of the old town walls. Of the defense works of the period of Swedish occupation (1648-1803) there survive the Baroque Provianthaus (1690), now a polyclinic, and the old Arsenal (Zeughaus; 1699) in Ulmenstrasse, which now houses the municipal archives.
East of St George's Church in Wismar is the Fürstenhof (1553-54), a three-story Renaissance building now occupied by law courts and the municipal archives.
Two notable churches in Wismar are the 14th C. church of the Hospital of the Holy Ghost and the 15th C. St George's Church (in ruins; rebuilding planned).
To the south of St Nicholas's Church in Wismar, at Schweinsbrücke 8, is the Schabbellhaus, a building in Dutch Renaissance style (by Philipp Brandin, 1569-71) which is now occupied by a museum on the history of the town.
In a square adjoining Wismar's Markt rises the massive tower of St Mary's Church (1339; crypt 1270-80), which was destroyed in 1945. The Archidiakonat (pastor's house) of the mid 15th C. was restored after the war.
On the north side of the Old Town of Wismar is St Nicholas's Church (14th-15th C.), which was modeled on nearby St Mary's. It has a 37m/121ft high nave and a fine interior (Late Gothic to Baroque); the font (c. 1335) came from St Mary's Church.
Address: St Nicholas's Church, D-23966 Wismar, Germany
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