Langer August, Cultural center in Innenstadt-Nord district, Dortmund, Germany
Langer August is a cultural center in the Innenstadt-Nord district located at Braunschweiger Straße 22. The building holds several rooms where conferences, workshops, concerts, readings, and exhibitions take place.
The house was built in 1904/05 by master carpenter Wilhelm Köstner, with Ernst Stephan as site manager; master plasterer Theodor Schäfer bought it in 1905. It is a four-storey building with Jugendstil influences, originally a Zweispänner housing two families and a lodger per floor. In 1977 pastor Gerhard Breidenstein acquired it for the Dortmund Workers' Self-Help; after that group dissolved in 1979, activists founded the Langer August association and opened the house with a beer festival in mid-November 1979. It was listed as a monument in 2008.
The name Langer August refers to Kurt Schmidt, a Dortmund communist resistance fighter who lived nearby and was nicknamed for his height. Since 1983 the rear courtyard has housed the Kommunikationscentrum Ruhr, founded in 1972 and described as Germany's oldest lesbian and gay center.
The house is at Braunschweiger Straße 22 in the Nordstadt; a café occupies the ground floor and a seminar room the top floor. The Kommunikationscentrum Ruhr, Germany's oldest lesbian and gay center, sits in the rear courtyard. The Chaostreff Dortmund hackerspace uses the whole second floor with five rooms.
The name honours Kurt Schmidt, a Dortmund communist resistance fighter who lived nearby and was nicknamed "Langer August" by friends because of his height. The house opened under that name in mid-November 1979 with a beer festival.
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