ZENTRALWERK Dresden

In the location's words:

The Zentralwerk is a building complex at Riesaer Straße 32 in Dresden Pieschen, which is being renovated and operated by Zentralwerk Kultur- und Wohngenossenschaft Dresden eG. The cooperative has a heritable building right for 99 years with the trias Foundation, which owns the site.

We are the Kulturverein Zentralwerk e.V.

Since its foundation in 2005, we have been a heterogeneous group of cultural workers who, in their self-image as the cultural arm of the cooperative, have their main place of activity in the Zentralwerk community center.

In view of the diversity of professional profiles, the members of the association put their artistic potential into the realization of interdisciplinary projects. In keeping with the site's history as a factory, the association's self-image is that of a cultural workshop, characterized by close and regular collaboration between members and based on networking and exchange. This is how we carry out ambitious and socially valuable projects.

Zentralwerk e.V. has undergone several transformations during its lifetime. Founded as friedrichstaTTpalast e.V. at Friedrichstraße 52, the first change came when the Friedrichstadtpalast in Berlin threatened to sue us for € 250,000 in damages. As we could not and did not want to give in to the demand, we decided to change the name to friedrichstadtZentral e.V.. Over the years, friedrichstadtZentral became not only a legal form as an association, but also a kind of artists' collective that grew with its themes within the framework of SICHTBETONUNG. When we were due to move out of the old bookbindery in Friedrichstraße in 2012, we began to search intensively for a replacement building and found what we were looking for at Riesaer Straße 32 in Dresden Pieschen. In our opinion, the legal form of an association was no longer sufficient to realize a project of this size, so we founded Zentralwerk Kultur- und Wohngenossenschaft Dresden. Since friedrichstadtZentral, as the initiator, sees itself as the cultural arm of the cooperative, a change of name to Zentralwerk e.V. was an obvious consequence.