Volkshaus, Community center in Weimar, Germany.
Volkshaus is a two-storey building at Friedrich-Ebert-Straße 8 in Weimar, erected from 1906 to 1908 to plans by architect Bruno Röhr. Its gable end carries a double-wing door reached by steps, and a memorial plaque on the stair landing names nine workers shot here on 15 March 1920. The house is closed because of structural decay.
The building was constructed between 1906 and 1908 as a meeting place for social democrats and labor unions during the German Empire. It served as an important venue for political and social discussion in that era.
The name Volkshaus, "people's house", marks it as a workers' meeting place; the building was run in the DDR as the Kulturhaus "Michael Niederkirchner", named after the communist resistance fighter. Its cellar housed the photo circle of the VEB Mähdrescherwerk, founded in 1955 and active until 1990, and in 1988 the men's cooking club of the VEB Weimar-Werk was founded here. The building is closed because of dilapidation, so these uses can only be read about, not visited.
The Volkshaus stands at Friedrich-Ebert-Straße 8, and the building is closed because it is dilapidated, so it cannot be visited inside. The city of Weimar bought it in January 2024 for 600,000 euros in insolvency proceedings and plans to secure it and give it a new use. A memorial plaque for the workers killed in the Kapp Putsch of 1920 is on a stair landing in front of the two-storey building with its double door on the gable side.
The basement housed band rehearsal rooms and hosted concerts until 2009. This history shows how the building played a role in the local music scene for many decades.
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