Monday 17 December 2012

wappenschmied or great seal

While researching something else entirely (and I hope they never manage to work up a deliver system that can filter out all things tangential and only present exactly what one was looking for), I can across this really neat, abstract—modern totem for the City of Frankfurt am Main in use during the years of the Weimar Republic between World War I and II. The constitutional convention of 1919 took up the standard of the city that had hosted the last attempt, some sixty years prior, in deference to those efforts to first unite the German peoples under a constitutional monarchy.
Those seminarians were overcome by war and political intrigues but the task was one worth repeating and the Reichsadler (not empire but rather the word suggests realms) of Frankfurt is reflected in the contemporary seal of the federal government and seen on government buildings. Frankfurt modified its symbols and coat-of-arms to distinguish itself from the central government, and while the vexillology passed down does look quite dignified and officious, this sort-lived alternative offers an interesting statement on anachronism, seeming almost tiki inspired and with the talons of a Lego minifig.