Nothing is forever, but that’s for sure. Chemnitz on the way to new possibilities
and the question: Where are we going?

<By Benjamin Horner, blogger.

Last week, the Chemnitz Capital of Culture office invited to an information conference, around
the application for the European Capital of Culture. By 2025, the
Mayor's Office acting team, Chemnitz against numerous other candidate cities from
all of Germany. Therefore, last week local and international
interested parties are invited to join professional advisors from both the
art and culture, as well as business and science.

Already on Monday, Barbara Ludwig, Lord Mayor of the city of Chemnitz, emphasized the importance of
it is for all applicants to work together. She herself would wish that
"all cities would be European Capitals of Culture". In this sense the offers of the
Conference not only to the cultural institutions of the city of Chemnitz. Also representatives from
Dresden and Hannover should learn with and from each other. Experience gained from the
projects "Ruhr:2010" and "Linz may do anything" were won, make
but especially the city of Chemnitz hope. Oliver Scheytt, former managing director of
RUHR:2010 GmbH, emphasized in his presentation that it need not be about
compulsively occupy existing spaces with something entirely new. It's much more interesting,
how the applicants process their historical and regional diversity and use it to their advantage. From
Chemnitz really has a few of these "campfires" now. These together with the Chemnitzers
especially the Netzwerk für Kultur- und Jugendarbeit e.V. (Network for Culture and Youth Work) sees this as its
Competence. Numerous other contact points, above all the Capital of Culture office on the
Rosenhof, will continue to be available to all those who wish to participate.

What and how the districts, which are so different for themselves, can develop was the subject of
the Bar Camps on the second day of the city – culture – conference. Tinder for the discussion brought
a guided tour of the former workers' quarter Sonnenberg, as well as the former
Brühl Shopping Arcade. With their original function, the two quarters today do not
more much more mean. The first pioneers settled on the Sonnenberg and the
Brühl-Passage lost, due to the increasing relocation of shopping facilities to
Suburbs, on visitors. Similar dynamics can be found everywhere in Germany, in Saxony
and in Chemnitz.

The KRACH initiative is an example of how to specifically counter the downward spiral of German
downtown work. Also presented during the Bar – Camps was the
young companies as quick-witted and with numerous ideas up their sleeve. Supported by
the city planning office of Chemnitz puts the young company where other problems
overlooked. Emptiness and decay are being overlooked by the idea of "culture as the engine of
urban development", which is certainly the central motto of the European Capital of
Culture can apply. To make Chemnitz attractive for creative minds, KRACH uses the
regional conditions and joins forces with players from the real estate industry.
Those projects, which wish a European future for the former Karl – Marx – city
and are prepared to endure uncertainty and tension, for which the freestyle offers a
European Capital of Culture the decisive spark. No secrets were made at the meeting
from the fact that the "Project Stat(dt)kultur Chemnitz:2025" does not solve all problems
can. That would be blind eyewash and would be contrary to the aim of the meeting. Christopher
Thoma, curator of the conference, therefore sees in the Capital of Culture more "a catalyst, a
instantaneous water heater", which drives existing projects forward and ignites new ideas. From the
series of initiators, individual projects are already emerging, but the central
The findings of the conference are that the entire process should not be viewed in isolation from the
may take place in public. Now she too must ask herself: "Where are we going?"

The author: Benjamin Horner (22), Blogger

Benjamin comes from Obertshausen near Frankfurt a. M. and has been studying sociology at the TU Chemnitz since October 2014. He is interested in the connection between individuals and their immediate environment. Cities and urban development projects such as the European Capital of Culture play a major role in this.