When I visited a friend in Berlin over two years ago, I really really really wanted to go to Dresden and Leipzig and Dessau…and the list goes on and on. Thank goodness I have no pennies in my pocket, and my travel itch has been temporarily solved by this blog, because I would have gone crazy a long time ago. “What do you want to do with your life?” “Uh, nothing. But I’d like to be a professional traveler!” Is that an appropriate answer to such a question? Well, maybe one day I’ll go back to Deutschland to see the Dresden Panometer. Located inside a former gasometer, a panoramic painting shows Dresden as it might have appeared in the Baroque days of 1756, or before the British and Americans bombed it death in World War II. The exhibit, created in 2006 by the Austrian-born artist Yadegar Asisi, is a combination of the words “panorama” and “gasometer”. How 21st century! With a cityscape in 1:1 scale, using light, sound and other historical details to show what life was like over 250 years ago, visitors are treated to a one-of-a-kind experience of the senses. Looking down on the recreated city from a 39-foot-high platform, there are the roofs of the royal palace along the Elbe River with birds chirping and carpenters hammering and music playing. I really wish more cities took over old gas containers and put on exhibits like this one. Did you hear me, Chicago? Here’s your chance to pay for your sins, you know, like tearing down all those beautiful old buildings in the name of progress and renewal.
Dresden Panometer, Germany
