Chemnitz is currently preparing its application for the title “European Capital of Culture 2025”. Experts from all over Europe are regularly invited to Chemnitz to make recommendations during discussions and internal workshops.

One such expert is Dr Elisabeth Leitner. The Austrian researches and teaches at the Technical University of Vienna and the Carinthian University of Applied Sciences, where she has been the head of the architecture course since autumn 2016. Elisabeth Leitner initiated the discussion platform kulturhauptstadt2024.at in autumn 2014. She was a guest in Chemnitz last week, looked at the status of preparations for the application – and was quite taken with Chemnitz: “This is my first time here and I am absolutely positively positively surprised. The city seems alive and is in the process of being creatively created. There is a tingling sensation here!” She was particularly struck by the foreseeable development on the Brühl and the creative atmosphere of departure on the Sonnenberg. Leitner had scientifically accompanied the development of Graz, among other things. The Austrian metropolis was 2003 Capital of Culture – the long-term (after)effects of the title are considered particularly successful here. The city has found a new self-confidence. In the course of the application, the urban river Mur was brought back into the consciousness of the inhabitants, Leitner cites a concrete example. Chemnitz is also conceivable to do the same.

Culture manager Christoph Thoma, also Austrian, from Culture Lab adds to the prospects of the application: “The fact that urban development is for the first time so much in the focus of the application process is a great opportunity for Chemnitz”. A big plus, he added, is also the broad participation of the population and creative people, which has been lived out from the very beginning. Around 150 players are already involved in various ways.

<Strong, strong. Here we go.

Starting next Tuesday, the "Capital of Culture Office" will be the first contact point for actors and interested parties, which will then open in the Rosenhof. On the same day, the new Capital of Culture application website will also go online. www.chemnitz2025.de