The heart of the Hanseatic city of Stralsund is the Old Market Square, where the settlement of Stralsund began in the 13th century. This rectangular square, surrounded by historic gabled houses, is rightly considered one of the most beautiful late medieval market squares in the Baltic Sea region, with numerous sights to see. One of these is the Wulflamhaus at Old Market No. 5, named after its builder, Bertram Wulflam, a former councilman, wealthy cloth merchant, and later mayor of Stralsund. The Wulflamhaus was designed as a smaller mirror image of the facade of the town hall, which is located directly opposite. The pretty town house in the North German brick Gothic style, which is now one of the best-preserved late Gothic residential buildings in northern Germany, has impressive decorative elements on its stepped gable. These symbolize not only the wealth and power of the house owner, but also the rise of the urban merchant guilds. The hall house was used as a residence as well as a commercial and storage building. The storage rooms were located in the upper bedrooms, while the merchant family lived in the side wing attached to the courtyard. The hall was used as a representative business space. The courtyard housed a brewery that was used for beer production for a long time and is now the venue for the Vorpommern Theater. Since extensive reconstruction work between 1988 and 1991, the Wulflamhaus has been home to a restaurant and now also the press office of the Stralsund city administration. The Wulflamhaus, located in the heart of the urban area recognized by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site, “Historic Old Towns of Stralsund and Wismar,” is truly one of the most beautiful medieval gabled houses in the Hanseatic city of Stralsund, which I also visited during my trip to Stralsund.
