The rather modest Brühl Boulevard runs through the middle of the city of Chemnitz. Many hopes for the city are pinned on the Brühl, where many visions have failed and at least as many new ones have been created. One cannot write about the Brühl Boulevard without using the phrase “former splendid boulevard”. In front of the inner eye, images that are ready for a history film flicker up: Of a magnificent street lined with mighty trees, filled with busy people and elegant flâneurs, like the Croisette in Nice or the Champs-Élysées in Paris or the Kurfürstendamm in Berlin, but in a medium-sized city in East Germany.

The Brühl is more of a play street than a boulevard, but there are cherry trees that bloom magnificently in spring next to socialist street lamps. In between there are shops, some are empty, some have only recently been filled with life again – the Brühl is precisely the Chemnitz definition of the “splendid boulevard” concept. Like every popular boulevard, the Brühl has an attraction, a landmark, but there is no cathedral, no triumphal archway, no victory column, nothing pompous, no ostentation – there are just seven silver letters here: HOME.

This HOME is sometimes smeared or embellished, sometimes someone sticks stickers on it, often children play next to it, sometimes people sit in the U or H, sometimes letters are missing, then there is only HOUSE, sometimes bands play in front of it, again and again you can see photos of it on Instagram and hearts in the comments below. Nobody knows exactly why there is this writing, it is somehow just there. Home is a word, a place, but above all a feeling with which you identify yourself in Chemnitz. In Chemnitz, you definitely like to be outside, but you also simply like being at home. That’s why people laughed at us as “couch potatoes”, but we have trained for years for the current emergency, because HOME, that’s written in bold and silver all over Europe now. ZUHAUSE is no longer just a place, at home now a state. A state of boredom, a state of crisis, a state of despair, a state of reflection, a state of loneliness or one of community, a privileged state.

The public space has largely withdrawn into the private sphere: At home is now the office, the gym, school, playground, pub, concert hall, club. Three rooms, dance floor, bathroom. Home is no longer defined by the four walls of one’s own home, but also by the four monitors. There is a new dimension in public space, namely the pixels on computer and mobile phone displays that translate into the virtual what real life is missing at the moment. The club night becomes a television format, the after-work beer becomes a video chat. This is simultaneously comforting and sad. Because no matter how creative the approach is, it always seems to be only half the solution. Because it makes a huge difference whether you escalate together with friends in the same room or have semi-solitary self-talks at home. Culture is physical, culture is created through shared experience, culture is not an act of isolation, and actually the exact opposite of loneliness. In isolation, it can only develop its community-building power to a limited extent, remains symbolic – and that is tragic.

But what does Chemnitz, the city where being at home is so important that it puts it in capital letters on its only boulevard? One remains pragmatic, one remains calm, one arranges oneself with the situation, one patiently sits it out, one joins forces, one has already been through a lot here. And: Chemnitz suddenly goes out a lot, feels more than usual. The bike paths are full, the parks are full, people sit on the benches, read books, keep a disciplined distance. But it is most crowded on Brühl Boulevard, although it is actually quite empty at times. HOME is really busy now.

<The author: Johanna Eisner was born in 1988 in Reichenbach/Vogtland. In 2007 she moved to Chemnitz to study media & communication sciences, which was more a compromise than a feeling of happiness. Today she still lives in the city and finds it quite alright. During her studies she spent more time in the university radio than in the seminar room. There she headed the music editorial office for five years, because in the past she always wanted to be a music journalist, fashion designer, author of children's books, guitarist and famous, preferably all at the same time. But that didn't quite work out: today she works as a copywriter and concept developer in the advertising world and writes as a freelance cultural journalist for the Chemnitz daily newspaper "Freie Presse", city magazines and other city projects.