Focus on Eastern Modernism at the Open Monument Day

This year's nationwide Open Monument Day will focus on post-war architecture in the former GDR. Under the motto "Valuable: priceless or irreplaceable?", the German Foundation for Monument Protection announced that the focus will be on so-called Eastern Modernism. On 14 September, thousands of monuments across Germany will once again open their doors to what the organizers say is Germany's largest cultural event.

In keeping with the theme, the central opening ceremony will take place this year in the eastern Thuringian city of Gera. This will be the first time in 20 years that the day has been opened in Thuringia. Gera is home to neo-Gothic and Baroque sacred buildings and residential buildings by Art Nouveau founder Henry van de Velde and his pupil Thilo Schoder. In contrast, eastern modernism and Bauhaus architecture characterize the cityscape.

The city of 93,000 inhabitants was particularly impressed by the decision to extensively renovate the Culture and Congress Center, which opened in 1981, as a nationally significant example of Eastern Modernism, said Steffen Skudelny, Chairman of the Foundation. The former building of the SED district leadership in Gera is also almost completely preserved and will be made exclusively accessible on Open Monument Day.