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The romanesque Kaiserdom or Emperor's Cathedral in Speyer
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Which Way to the Future?
The scene is Speyer, in the middle of the night. Anyone roaming the streets at this hour must think they’ve boarded a time machine back to the Middle Ages. All it takes is one look at the Romanesque “Kaiserdom” or “Emperor’s Cathedral” from the 11th century. The cathedral was the largest church in the Christian world at the time it was built. Its four massive towers, two cathedral domes and long central nave are breathtaking.
The view from the eastern portal extends along a wide boulevard to the “Altpörtel”, which once served as the city gate. From this vantage point it seems like the time machine has catapulted our unsuspecting visitors forward to the beginning of the 18th century. This was the time when the city was rebuilt, after being burned to the ground during the Nine Years War. Nearly all the buildings in the town center have survived to the present day relatively unscathed by the passage of time. Baroque structures like the town hall, the “Neue Kaufhaus” or “new department store”, part of the Heiliggeistkirche or “Church of the Holy Ghost”, the Dreifaltigkeitskirche or “Church of the Trinity”, and smaller buildings from this time period provide the backdrop for the town’s pedestrian zone.
Administration in theory and practice
Rush hour traffic and the everyday hustle and bustle of life in the 21st century brings the visitor back to the present. The modern town of Speyer looms large in the form of government buildings. Speyer is an administration city, and most of its jobs are in the public service sector. There is the State Insurance Office, the Rhineland-Palatine Audit Office, the State Archive and the State Library to name just a few. So it comes as no surprise that the German Post-Graduate School of Administrative Sciences is located here as well.
The restaurant business is another important branch of industry, especially in the historic town center. Today’s residents can make a good living off the 2,000-year-old town’s history. The venerable old architectural monuments attract thousands of visitors.
The museums also draw tourists. At the Historical Palatine Museum, with its new exhibit of treasures from the cathedral, visitors can relive the heyday of the Salian emperors. Celtic and Roman artifacts from the pre-Christian era bear witness to the city’s origins. Turn from these monuments of history to the Museum of Technology or the IMAX cinema with its futuristic dome projection and once again there’s a feeling of being catapulted through time.
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