An architectural treat

Despite its grand name, "Zum Güldenen Stern" ("The Golden Star"), the building was long one of the dingiest spots in Erfurt's old town. From 1990 onwards, one architectural treasure after the next was uncovered and polished up all the way round the building, while the Stern simply got duller as each year passed. The owner lived a long way from the property and was at ends over where to even start.

Unlike Frank Orschler from Allendorf in the Thurinigian Forest: "I passed it very regularly, and it always looked so desolate. At some point, I bought it – for the love of it, not to make money." Thanks to his passion, the Stern is now shining again, reflecting more than half a millennium of the city's history and filled with museum-like yet comfortable and cutting-edge living spaces.

Mr Orschler's company produces implants to repair bones – and he has done something similar with the building.

The "Güldene Stern" is one of the oldest merchant's houses in Erfurt– one of the few leftover from the Medieval period. Mr Orscher didn't know much else about the building when he bought it. Add-ons, extensions, paint and plastering buried historical features all over the building. Rounded archways were walled in, external stairwells were added to the walls, and paving stones were covered in asphalt. During the careful excavation and removal work, Mr Orschler experienced "one surprise after another".

Read more under the image gallery.

The most eye-catching elements are the murals that adorn the walls, ceilings, beams and bays, stretching from the Renaissance, Baroque and Classical periods through to various modern-day movements. The paintings feature ornaments, flowers, ribbons and fragments of figures. Some of the paintings are almost complete and look as good as new, while faded remnants are all that's left of others. They all raise questions – as before, not much is known about the original builder and the building's former residents and their trades.

And very little is known of the goings-on on the top floor, which previously consisted of a single, huge hall over four metres in height. This hall still forms the heart of the building today: a rented flat with a more than generous hallway out into the courtyard. The living rooms and grand bay windows point out onto the street.

From the kitchen on the courtyard side, a new walkway leads onto the roof of the newer warehouse at the back, which used to house a mechanics. This walkway is used as a terrace by the tenants and is probably the largest single piece of outdoor space belonging to any flat in Erfurt old town.