Editing Gotha (section)

== Culture, sights and cityscape ==

=== Museums ===
Gotha hosts various museums, which are – together with the ducal buildings – promoted as the ''Gothaer Barock-Universum'' ("Baroque universe of Gotha").
* Friedenstein Castle hosts the following museums:
** The ''Ekhof Theatre'' is a Baroque court theatre and the world's only 17th century theatre with original stage machinery still working.
** The ''Historic Museum'' hosts an exhibition about municipal and regional history and culture of Gotha. 
** The ''[[Museum of Nature Gotha|Museum of Nature]]'' shows a natural history exhibition with animals, minerals and fossils. 
** The ''Castle Museum'' contains the former ducal living rooms and several items of cultural history. 
* The ''[[Ducal Museum Gotha|Ducal Museum]]'' opposite to the castle hosts the ducal collection of art, containing Egyptian antiques, Renaissance [[Old Master]]s paintings, Chinese and [[Meissen porcelain|Meissen]] porcelaine and more. 
* The ''Insurance Museum'' at Bahnhofstraße is Germany's only museum on the history of the insurance business, which has been important in Gotha since 1820.
* The ''Tivoli'' at Cosmarstraße is the place where the [[Social Democratic Party of Germany]] was founded and hosts a small exhibition on the party's history.

==== Image gallery ====
<gallery>

File:Bühne des Ekhof-Theaters.JPG|Ekhof Theatre
File:Westturm Friedenstein Gotha.JPG|The Historic Museum and the Museum of Nature are located in Friedenstein's western tower
File:Gotha-exponate-010.jpg|One of the rooms at Castle Museum
File:Thuringia Gotha asv2020-07 img28 Herzogliches Museum.jpg|Ducal Museum – Gotha's art historical and antiquities museum
File:Thuringia Gotha asv2020-07 img07 Versicherungsmuseum.jpg|Insurance Museum
File:Thuringia Gotha asv2020-07 img29 Gothaer Tivoli.jpg|Tivoli
</gallery>

=== Cityscape ===
[[File:Villa Gotha2.JPG|thumb|A typical ruined late-19th century mansion near the city centre]]
The city centre of Gotha has two medieval parts: the old town around ''Hauptmarkt'' and the new town around ''Neumarkt''. Both were walled until 1810, when the city walls were broken down and a boulevard was laid out in their place. Early-modern suburbiums were established to the south-west (around ''Dreikronengasse''), to the west (around ''Große Fahnenstraße'') and to the east (around ''Mohrenberg''). The later 19th century brought larger growth in all directions. Especially the axis between the main station and the city centre received a representative development in capital-city style. Due to Gotha's function as a ducal residence, most buildings built between 1870 and 1914 were generous in size and many mansions were built. Only some outer districts show the typical German working-class tenements (e.g. around ''Oststraße'' and ''Seebergstraße''). The largest ''[[Plattenbau]]'' settlement of Gotha was established at the western periphery during the late [[GDR]] period. In the 1980s, large areas of the western old town were demolished and replaced by small-scale ''Plattenbau'' houses. After 1990, many buildings were thoroughly refurbished after having fallen into dereliction during GDR times. Nevertheless, a relatively large share of ruined historic buildings remains characteristic for Gotha (in comparison to neighbouring cities like Eisenach, Erfurt or Weimar), especially within the historic new town and the 19th century belt around the city centre. The government sometimes failed to conserve historic buildings, for example the ''{{Interlanguage link|Volkshaus zum Mohren|de}}'' was demolished in 2007, as was the ''{{Interlanguage link|Winterpalais|de|3=Winterpalais (Gotha)}}'' in 2011 (although the latter has now being reconstructed externally). The ''{{Interlanguage link|Orangerie (Gotha)|de|3=Orangerie Gotha}}'' was saved in 2006, and the ''Prinzenpalais'' was restored in 2017 although the adjacent ''Kavaliershaus'' was demolished.

=== Sights and architectural heritage ===

==== Churches ====
* The main Protestant church ''St. Margarethen'' at Neumarkt was built between 1494 and 1543 in late-[[Gothic architecture|Gothic style]]. 
* The Protestant church ''St. Salvator'' at Klosterplatz is a former monastery of the [[Augustinians]], built around 1300 in Gothic style and dissolved in 1525.
* The ducal chapel inside Friedenstein Castle is located at the north-eastern corner and was designed in 1697. 
* The Protestant ''Friedrichskirche'' at Erfurter Landstraße was built between 1712 and 1715 in [[Baroque architecture|Baroque style]].
* The Protestant church ''St. Helena'' at Siebleben district was built between 1818 and 1827 in [[Neoclassical architecture|Neo-Classical style]]. 
* The Catholic parish church ''St. Bonifatius'' at Moßlerstraße was built in 1855 in [[Romanesque revival|Neo-Romanesque style]].

<gallery>

File:Thuringia Gotha asv2020-07 img22 Margarethenkirche.jpg|St. Margarethen
File:Augustinian church in Gotha (4).jpg|St. Salvator
File:Gotha, Schlosskirche im Schloss Friedenstein.JPG|Ducal chapel inside Friedenstein Castle
File:Gotha Friedrichkirche1.jpg|Friedrichskirche
File:Siebleben-Dorfkirche.JPG|St. Helena
File:Gotha Bonifatiuskirche2.jpg|St. Bonifatius
</gallery>

==== Castles and palaces ====
* The former residence of the [[Saxe-Gotha]] dukes is [[Friedenstein Castle]], one of the largest late-Renaissance/early-Baroque styled castles in Germany. It consists of three wings in U-form with two towers at their ends and was built between 1643 1654. 
* The ''Schloss Friedrichsthal'' at Friedrichstraße is the former ducal summer residence, built between 1707 and 1711 in [[French Baroque architecture|French Baroque style]]. 
* The ''Winterpalais'' at Friedrichstraße is the former ducal winter residence, built in 1822 in neo-classical style. 
* The ''Orangerie'' at Friedrichstraße consists of two symmetric orangery houses and a Baroque park in between, built between 1747 and 1774. 
* The ''Prinzenpalais'' at Mozartstraße was the ducal guesthouse, built in 1776. 
* The ''Marstall'' at Parkallee was the ducal stables, built in 1847. 
* The ''Schloss Mönchhof'' at Siebleben district was a ducal summer residence, built in the late 18th century.

<gallery>

File:Schloss-Friedenstein01.JPG|Patio of Friedenstein Castle
File:Schloss Friedenstein Gotha.JPG|Towers of Friedenstein Castle
File:Friedrichsthalgotha.jpg|Schloss Friedrichsthal
File:Winterpalais Gotha 2006.jpg|Winterpalais
File:Thuringia Gotha asv2020-07 img13 Orangerie.jpg|Orangerie (northern building)
File:Thuringia Gotha asv2020-07 img11 Marstall.jpg|Marstall
File:Gotha-Siebleben-Schloss-Mönchhof-1.JPG|Schloss Mönchhof
</gallery>

==== Other sights ====
* The ''town hall'' at Hauptmarkt was built as a bourse between 1566 and 1574 in [[Renaissance architecture|Renaissance style]]. It has been in use as town hall since 1665. 
* There are some Renaissance patricians' houses around Hauptmarkt and Brühl, showing the city's wealth through the 15th and 16th centuries. 
* The ''Hospital St. Mary'' is the former city hospital and was built between 1716 and 1719 in Baroque style. 
* The ''Crematorium'' at the main cemetery is the oldest one in Germany, established in 1878. 
* The ''Wasserkunst'' ([[water feature]]) at Schlossberg were established in 1895 with three cascades traversed by water from the Leinakanal. 
* The ''Courthouse'' at Justus-Perthes-Straße was built in 1895/96 in historicistic forms. 
* The 19th and early-20th century school buildings in Gotha are of impressive size and design, for example the Ernestinum (1837/38) at Bergallee, the Myconiusschule (1865) at Bürgeraue, the Herzog-Ernst-Schule at Reinhardsbrunner Straße, the Andreas-Reyher-Schule (1898–1900) at Mozartstraße, the Arnoldischule (1909–1911) at Eisenacher Straße and the former Baugewerbeschule (1910/11) at Trützschlerplatz. 
* Many of the banks' and insurances' buildings of Gotha are also architecturally interesting. They were built during Gotha's time as a centre of the finance industry around 1900. The ''Deutsche Grundkreditbank'' at Bahnhofstraße (1872–1877) was built by [[Ludwig Bohnstedt]], as was the ''Gothaer Feuerversicherung'' (1872–1874) at Bahnhofstraße and the ''Gothaer Privatbank'' (1873–1877) at Ekhofplatz. The ''Gothaer Lebensversicherung'' (1893/94) was built by Bruno Eelbo at Bahnhofstraße and the ''Ducal Cashier's Office'' (1908) at Justus-Perthes-Straße was built by Alfred Cramer. 
* The [[Garden city movement|garden city]] ''Am Schmalen Rain'' was built in 1928 in garden-city style like [[Hellerau]] near Dresden.
* The [[Stadtbad Gotha]] is an [[Art Nouveau]]-style public bathhouse built in 1909 and restored in 2014.
* Perthesforum, opened in 2014, and containing the [https://www.uni-erfurt.de/en/forschungscampus-gotha/campus-gotha/akteure/wissen-global Perthes archives] (185,000 maps, 120,000 geographical publications and approximately 800 metres business archives) of [[Justus Perthes (publishing company)]].

<gallery>

File:Rathaus Gotha.JPG|Town hall
File:Hospital Gotha.JPG|St. Mary's Hospital
File:Gotha Wasserkunst Hauptmarkt.jpg|''Wasserkunst''
File:Gotha-Amtsgericht1-Bubo.JPG|Courthouse
File:Ernestinum Gotha.JPG|Ernestium school
File:Privatbank Gotha.JPG|''Gothaer Privatbank''
File:Am Schmalen Rain Gotha1.JPG|Garden city ''Am Schmalen Rain''
File:Gotha-Stadtbad-2-CTH.JPG|Stadtbad Gotha
File:Gotha-Perthesforum-1-CTH.JPG|Perthesforum
</gallery>