the word colonia ( cologne ) comes from "a roman colony outside rome" and that`s what cologne was. the romans build the town wall for example. in the medieval time the so called "old town" part began to form. like in the 3666 castle house , or the bakery , taylor etc. these houses exist still today - so you see in the old playmo catalogues often medieval houses and a modern scene with tourists etc. around 1880 they began to tear down the old town wall to make more room. often just the town gate survived. then mostly in half circles there where bigger streets build around the old part that where called the "rings" ( in cologne they still have this name ). at these streets there were a lot of bigger sales stores , banks etc and the houses where build like in the 1900 playmo nostalgie houses style. unfortunately cologne was bombed in world war 2 in ashes - so there are just a few nice buildings left...
but that is the mix around 1900. roman town gates, medieval houses build in carcass style ( till 19th century ) and the houses from the era called "gründerzeit". you should google the time period "gründerzeit" and the pics to get more information about this prosperous time in europe.
btw : i actually live in a carcass house
to come back to the theme - this is perfectly portrait in the excellent pics of marcus. when i started my 1900 project i did get a lot of inspiration - it was a bit hard not to make it look like his work because he covers everything you can imagine about that time very exactly - i had to google more pics and get more information about that time.
also the custom figures and vehicles are very nice.
cheers
