Chemnitz was the cradle of industrialisation: steam engines and mechanical looms justified the reputation as an economic centre. The traces are still visible today in the cityscape in many places. Chemnitz businessmen had their factories constructed by eminent architects, indicated by the former foundry which today is home to the Saxon Industriemuseum (industrial museum) on the Kappler Drehe. Yet Gründerzeit residential quarters are also testament to the economic wealth, for example, Kassberg, the banking and shop buildings, factory owners' villas such as the Villa Esche, schools and also the new town hall on the market place.

Today, Chemnitz self-confidently calls itself the city of modernity - lively, dynamic and open to new things. Classical and modern fuse in Chemnitz in completely unconventional combinations: in a former Sparkasse building, one of the largest private collections of Classic Modernism art in Chemnitz can be seen at the Gunzenhauser museum.

The Chemnitz city swimming pool, constructed in the Bauhaus style, was regarded as the most modern of its kind when it opened.

Today, the former Tietz department store offers a meeting place of culture and education which is unique across the whole of Germany, with an adult education school, city library, the New Saxon gallery and the museum of natural history which is home to the 290-million-year-old Petrified Forest.

The new, lively city centre itself is a sight worth seeing, which can be comfortably explored on foot: with the consumer temples produced after the fall of the wall by famous architects and also the contemporary witnesses to the medieval period with the red tower and the almost as old city church St. Jakobi. And not to forget the colossal Karl-Marx monument that the people of Chemnitz still affectionately call their "Nischel" (head) ...