New address "Johannisstraße"
Chemnitz City Council decides to rename part of Johannisplatz square
At its meeting today in 2020, the city council decided to rename the access road from Bahnhofstrasse to Johannisplatz 5 as "Johannisstrasse". This area previously belonged to Johannisplatz, where an office and commercial building is currently being built on a 5,700 square metre site, which will now be addressed as "Johannisstraße".
The new building will house the headquarters of energy supplier eins, a hotel and retail outlets as well as an underground and multi-storey car park. This complex is scheduled for completion in autumn 2021 and will fit into the urban context of the listed neighbouring buildings.
Background to the city's history
Before 1945, the Chemnitz street directory listed an "Innere Johannisstraße" and an "Äußere Johannisstraße". The latter connected Johannisplatz with the former Augustusburger-/Dresdner Straße junction. The "Innere Johannisstraße" ran roughly from Neumarkt to today's Johannisplatz.
The name Johannisplatz refers to the nearby St John's Church, which gave its name to the suburb as well as to a city gate and streets. St John's Square was created as a result of structural changes in the last decades of the 19th century. After being named in 1860, it first appeared in the address book in 1861. In the first decades of the last century, it was the busiest and busiest square in the city due to the rapid increase in the city's population and the resulting strong growth in traffic. The central transfer point for most tram lines was also one of the most prestigious addresses in Chemnitz's business world.
During the Second World War, all the buildings flanking the square were destroyed with the exception of the former Dresdner Bank building. After the war, the square was cleared of rubble.
It was renamed Stalinplatz on 21 December 1949.
With the renaming on 16 November 1961, the square was "divided" in terms of address. The part facing Straße der Nationen was assigned to what was then Wilhelm-Pieck-Straße, while the part with today's multi-storey car park and the former main post office was given the name Neumarkt. This allocation was already described as "temporary" in the 1961 resolution, as the planned structural changes would result in new solutions.
After completion of the former main post office building and the former industrial administration building, the square was redesigned and landscaped. The square was renamed "Posthof" in 1968 and returned to Johannisplatz in 2000.
Following an appraisal process in 2015, the city is pressing ahead with the urban development of the area around Bahnhofstrasse and Brückenstrasse, including Johannisplatz, the future "Neue Johannisvorstadt" and the square at Tietz.