Rosenhof Chemnitz

The fountains are great.

Certainly a bit strange for today's architectural sensibilities, there was an idea behind it that I also found in Le Havre, for example, which was also completely destroyed in the war. The small-scale pre-war development with the often very dark apartments should not be repeated, instead the inner cities should be characterized by space, air and light. The guidelines of the socialist town planning of that time largely corresponded to the global understanding of modern planning: Green areas were created close to the apartments as well as "healthy" apartments for all city dwellers. The Rosenhof was laid out as a shopping street. The model for the construction of this new inner-city axis was perhaps the Rotterdam Lijnbaan, inaugurated in 1953, the first pedestrian zone in Europe. Seen with the perspective of the post-war years, the logic of the building at that time is revealed. Modern shops and restaurants emerged, arranged under arcades to the left and right of the pedestrian boulevard. Information on this: chemnitz-gestern-heute.de/rosenhof

The development of the former Holzmarkt was one of the first inner-city projects to be built in 1961 between the market and the then Fritz-Heckert-Platz as a residential area with retail and service facilities. What the Chemnitz city planners developed in their concept was to be functional and beautiful. This included recreational areas between the houses, playgrounds, lots of greenery, sculptures and water features, seating areas and small restaurants.
At the beginning of September 1962, the first tenants moved into the apartments, which were equipped with bathrooms, central heating and some with balconies.
On May 8, 1965, the anniversary of the liberation from Nazi fascism, Holzmarkt was renamed Rosenhof. In 1968, the construction of the 14-story high-rise created a structural closure to what was then Wilhelm-Pieck-Straße.
There were 890 apartments in the entire residential area, 190 of which were in the high-rise alone.