Chemnitz

With his specific interpretation of Art Nouveau on the former villa of the fabricant of socks, Herbert Esche, in 1903 Henry van de Velde created a manifest of modern architecture. After the conclusion of the extensive restoration, it serves as communication and meeting place for economy, art and culture since June 2001.

The art collections Chemnitz with more than 60.000 exhibits, the works by Karl Schmidt-Rottluff amongst others and the Museum Gunzenhauser represent an obvious highlight of Classic Modern Art of the 20th Century in Saxony. Dr. Alfred Gunzenhauser donated 2.459 works by 270 artists to the city.

As seat of the Saxon Industrial Museum in Chemnitz, the memorial complex of a factory around 1900 accommodates treasures from over 200 years of Saxon industrial culture. The focus lies on the entrepreneurial spirit as well as on the achievement of thousands of workers and the creativity of engineers.

The former department store palace accommodates an impressing Museum of Natural History including the 290 million-year-old "Petrified Forrest" in the roof-covered atrium of the Tietz-House. It is part of one of the scientifically most valuable collections of fossil plants in the world. The museum shows about 7.000 petrified woods from the transparent cut to the extremely heavy trunk.