Otto M. Schwarz

Heartbeat of a City

A city is founded - it has a heart that beats. But visible achievements such as buildings and infrastructure merely bear witness to what its true heart is made of - the people who have lived, and still live, in the city. The pulse of the city, brought to life by its heartbeat, changes over time. Who hasn’t seen those time-lapse images showing twinkling lines of car lights as people make their way to work, while others stand at traffic lights, only moving as if at the push of a button? These are like life flowing in the veins, driven by a strong heart. Leonardo da Vinci had already imagined the rivers as the blood vessels of the Earth. In any city, though, it’s not the rivers but the movement and activities of the people who live there. The heart doesn’t always beat steadily, however, but its rhythm can be influenced by joy, fear, and many other things. Every city has its own pulse. This is also true of the university city of Marburg, where people from over 100 nations now live together in a cosmopolitan and tolerant community. This work describes the city from its founding in 1222, and the charity of Saint Elizabeth, all the way to the present day.