While being in Hamburg last week, I came across another insult to aesthetics that makes a good follow up to this previous post. I was quite interested in paying a visit to the Bismarck memorial in Hamburg, mainly because its Berlin counterpart makes one of my favorite monuments, though not for the Bismarck statue itself, but for the 4 other statues surrounding it. You can read the wikipedia article for some basic info, I'll just say that they look incredibly imposing and powerful (reminding me in that sense the astonishing 2 statues flanking the entrance to the Altes Museum.
Hamburg's memorial is quite interesting, Bismarck stands sober and serious watching over one of the most affluent cities of the country he managed to unify (specifically over St. Pauli, the most leftist, anarchic, party going district in Hamburg). It's quite remarkable how with his cape and sword he looks more like a Teutonic Knight than like a statesman of the end of the XIX century.
And here you have some pics of the offence, when street art turns into street crap
As for Bismarck, he seems to be a rather interesting personage, and not just for founding the most important country in modern Europe. From my basic understanding of his biography, I have mixed feelings about him. On one side he was deeply anti-socialist, but on the other side he was responsible for creating the concept of Welfare state that civilized people (i.e Europeans, Canadians...) have today, along with trying to avoid war by all means (without him, WWI well might had occurred some decades earlier).
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