Schweinfurt's art treasures

From Schweinfurt-Mitte station, find your way to the banks of the Main, which you follow round to the left. Where today you can stroll along the Gutermann Promenade and admire works of art made of concrete, ships used to be pulled along the river, a job known as towage.

You will pass the industrial monument to the world's first roller on your left. On the right, you will see the lock island, which was separated from the Main island of Bleichrasen by the construction of the lock canal. At the end of the lock island, a tubular steel sculpture by the Matschinsky-Denninghoff couple puts you in the mood for the artistic theme of this tour. The promenade leaves the banks of the Main here.

Turn left at the Natural History Museum and enter Schweinfurt's old town centre. On both sides of Brückenstraße, you are greeted by a remarkable ensemble of buildings that skilfully combines medieval and contemporary architecture. It is made up of the municipal library, the main customs office, the Bavarian State Social Court and your first destination on this tour: the literally outstanding Georg Schäfer Museum.

At the Museum Georg Schäfer, the art on display is just as impressive as the museum building itself.

On display is the most important private collection of German painting from the 19th century and neighbouring decades - from late Rococo, Classicism, Romanticism and Impressionism to the Secessionists. In addition to the largest Carl Spitzweg collection in the world, it also includes works by Caspar David Friedrich, Max Liebermann, Max Beckmann, Wilhelm Leibl, Adolph von Menzel and many others. In terms of size and quality, the museum and its collection are comparable to the Neue Pinakothek in Munich and the Alte Nationalgalerie in Berlin.

This building, which is one of the most successful new museum buildings of the present day, is linked to the New National Gallery in Berlin in terms of architectural history. Since the 1950s, there have been repeated plans and competitions for a new museum building. These included an unrealised design by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in 1964, which subsequently became one of the foundations for the icon of classical modernism at the Berlin Kulturforum.

The design by Berlin architect Volker Staab from 1997 was finally realised. With its bridge elements and visual axes, it repeatedly offers surprising views of the interior of the museum and the city of Schweinfurt. The award-winning museum was opened in 2000 and is part of an ensemble of buildings that was voted one of the 24 best buildings in Germany by the German Architecture Museum.

A short detour allows you to place the modern building ensemble you have just visited in the surrounding Renaissance-influenced architecture of the old town district of Zürch.

After a few steps down Brückenstraße, turn right. In Rittergasse, you will see the façade of the Erbacher Hof, which is connected to the ensemble of the city library and the main customs office at its rear. A glance down Frauengasse reveals St Salvator's Church, a simple baroque church. This is where the Reformation began in the city, when the Saxon court preacher, humanist and historian Georg Spalatin preached in Schweinfurt for the first time in 1532.

Walk up Burggasse and turn left at the end into Rückertstraße. On the market square, it is worth taking a look at the Old Town Hall from 1572, the town's main landmark and one of the most beautiful secular Renaissance buildings in southern Germany.

You cross the market square diagonally and arrive at Martin-Luther-Platz with St John's Church, one of the most important ecclesiastical buildings between Bamberg and Würzburg. From here, return to Zehntstraße and head west past the Zeughaus, turn right into Wolfsgasse and left into Châteaudunpark in front of the city theatre. You follow the city wall to your second destination, the Kunsthalle Schweinfurt. Here, too, an extraordinary building harbours art from different eras.

Since opening in 2009, the Kunsthalle Schweinfurt has established itself as a central location for contemporary art in Germany. Masterpieces of art from the 1950s to the present day can be experienced on almost 2,000 square metres.
On the ground floor of the building, art-historical highlights are presented in the field of tension between abstraction and figurative-expressive art. A particular highlight is the collection of German Art Informel and Neofiguration, which is outstanding in Germany in terms of its quality and quantity. Works by the artist groups Quadriga, ZEN 49 as well as SPUR, WIR and GEFLECHT are on display. Artists such as Willi Baumeister, Fritz Winter and K. O. Goetz are represented, as are HP Zimmer, Heino Naujoks and Franz Hitzler. In the basement, under the title "Individual and Society", works on the East-West dialogue and the reunification year 1989/90 as well as contemporary landscape and architectural depictions are exhibited.

The Kunsthalle Schweinfurt is located in the former Ernst-Sachs-Bad. It was built by the eponymous industrialist Ernst Sachs, whose invention can still be found on modern bicycles today: the torpedo freewheel hub. He donated the public and indoor swimming pool to his home town of Schweinfurt.

A few steps down Rüfferstraße you will come to the district court. Walk past the building and turn right into Schillerplatz.

Leave the Stadtgalerie, which you will soon pass, on your left. There is no art waiting for you there, the Stadtgalerie is a shopping centre.

You walk under roads and railway tracks back to the banks of the Main. On your way along the Gutermann Promenade, you will pass the landmark of the industrial city of Schweinfurt. The 14-storey administration tower of Svenska Kullagerfabriken is illuminated in the evening with the SKF logo visible from afar. The weir also takes you to your departure station Schweinfurt Mitte.