Like other cities in East Germany, Leipzig has seen many of inhabitants leave since the fall of the Berlin wall. Today, certain abandoned industrial districts have been renovated, and the city is trying to encourage a middle class attracted by low rents to cohabit with disadvantaged populations that have always lived here. The Plagwitz district of Leipzig was one of the biggest manufacturing hubs in turn-of-the-century Europe. The textile industry flourished here. Today, the only traces left are the skeletons of dead factories. Hollow-eyed brick buildings on grounds overrun with scruffy shrubbery. An industrial wasteland surrounded by what used to be the workers' dwellings. This is the sad face of a city on the wane. And yet there is life in this neighbourhood west of the city centre. Some of the erstwhile factory buildings have been recycled for new purposes: small-scale community activities, youth clubs, gyms. The old cotton mill is a case in point: in mid-June German Chancellor Angela Merkel officially opened an exhibition on the premises featuring artists who work there, a number of whom are internationally renowned. "Some artists feel the west side has become much too elitist," explains Tobias Habermann. "They leave to seek their salvation elsewhere in Leipzig." They are the ones, however, who have given these neighbourhoods such a trendy image. "Around Lindenauer Markt, for example, 11 galleries have opened up recently. But most of the people you see hanging out at this square are welfare cases or 16-year-old mothers with prams."
Like other cities in East Germany, Leipzig has seen many of inhabitants leave since the fall of the Berlin wall. Today, certain abandoned industrial districts have been renovated, and the city is trying to encourage a middle class attracted by low rents to cohabit with disadvantaged populations that have always lived here.
The Plagwitz district of Leipzig was one of the biggest manufacturing hubs in turn-of-the-century Europe. The textile industry flourished here. Today, the only traces left are the skeletons of dead factories. Hollow-eyed brick buildings on grounds overrun with scruffy shrubbery. An industrial wasteland surrounded by what used to be the workers' dwellings. This is the sad face of a city on the wane.
And yet there is life in this neighbourhood west of the city centre. Some of the erstwhile factory buildings have been recycled for new purposes: small-scale community activities, youth clubs, gyms. The old cotton mill is a case in point: in mid-June German Chancellor Angela Merkel officially opened an exhibition on the premises featuring artists who work there, a number of whom are internationally renowned.
"Some artists feel the west side has become much too elitist," explains Tobias Habermann. "They leave to seek their salvation elsewhere in Leipzig." They are the ones, however, who have given these neighbourhoods such a trendy image. "Around Lindenauer Markt, for example, 11 galleries have opened up recently. But most of the people you see hanging out at this square are welfare cases or 16-year-old mothers with prams."
still, apparently
http://www.architektouren.com/english/leipzig/tour_7.html
stolen from here http://www.leipzig.de/int/en/tourist/stadtspaz/fotorund/02440.shtml
ach Leipzig.....
For the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, Deutsche Welle has developed a unique project in cooperation with the Berlin Wall Foundation: an animated depiction of the former German-German border. The HDTV computer animation maps out portions of the former borders in Berlin and between West and East Germany in an effort to show what a divided Germany was really like. Today, remnants of the Wall and of the no-man's land that separated East from West are too few and far between for their meaning to be passed on to future generations. Historians and television makers worked together in this Deutsche Welle project to create a detailed reconstruction of the no-man's land from the early 1980s, including new views of the border area.
The HDTV computer animation maps out portions of the former borders in Berlin and between West and East Germany in an effort to show what a divided Germany was really like.
Today, remnants of the Wall and of the no-man's land that separated East from West are too few and far between for their meaning to be passed on to future generations.
Historians and television makers worked together in this Deutsche Welle project to create a detailed reconstruction of the no-man's land from the early 1980s, including new views of the border area.
