Kalender

Dr Klausjürgen Schöler and Dr Wolfgang Steinbrück discuss the reconstruction of Dresden’s Hauptstraße during the GDR era whilst taking a walk from the Golden Rider to Albertplatz. The two architects, who were responsible for planning the northern section at the time, speak as eyewitnesses about their work. The focus is on their approach to combining the area’s historic urban planning with modern architecture and the design of open spaces. In doing so, they explain the urban planning and functional concepts, present the individual sections and discuss the construction conditions specific to Dresden’s industrial building methods at the time.

With Dr Klausjürgen Schöler and Dr Wolfgang Steinbrück

• Duration: 1.5 hours
• Meeting point at the Golden Rider
• Book online or via the visitor services department of the Museums of the City of Dresden on +49 351 488 7272 (Mon–Fri)

• Duration: 1.5 hours
• Meeting point at the ticket office
• Guided tour free of charge, plus museum admission
• No booking required

At the City Museum, we’ll discover prefabricated blocks of flats – buildings made up of lots of identical concrete slabs, which were built in many towns and cities. Afterwards, using LEGO® bricks and plenty of imagination, you’ll transform one of these blocks of flats and its surroundings into new, vibrant living spaces! All the ideas will then be displayed in a small exhibition.

• Age: 8 to 11 years
• Duration: 3 hours
• Cost: €6 per child
• Book online or via the visitor services department of Dresden’s municipal museums on +49 351 488 7272 (Mon–Fri)

Become a builder and design your very own piece of the city! Create your own mini concrete slab using liquid plaster. Before the plaster sets, it’s time to add some colour! Decorate your slab with colourful stones, glittering sand and mosaic tiles. Whether it’s a colourful block of flats or a stylish pattern – you decide what the »Platte« of the future will look like.

• Age: 6 to 13 years
• Duration: 2 hours
• Cost: €5 per child
• Book online or via the visitor services department at the Museums of the City of Dresden on +49 351 488 7272 (Mon–Fri)

A mysterious letter, a groundbreaking invention and lots of exciting puzzles: 100 years ago, a brilliant female inventor hid her latest invention in the City Museum to protect it from spies. Help the museum find the hiding place before the invention falls into the hands of the spies! Follow the clues and use your wits! Can you solve all the puzzles?

• Age: 8 to 12 years
• Duration: 1.5 hours
• Cost: €5 per child
• Book online or via the visitor services department of Dresden’s municipal museums on +49 351 488 7272 (Mon–Fri)

Zsuzsanna Gahse is one of the most distinctive voices of the literary avant-garde. Her texts move between poetry and prose, are light, fragmentary, dialogue-based - and always have a special linguistic conciseness. She has been a regular presence in Dresden since her Chamisso Poetry Lectureship in 2008.

Her new book "Spielbeginn. Verrutschungen" unfolds like a theatre play: characters wait - as in Beckett - and talk about meaning, language and transformation. But Gahse shows the counter-movement to silencing: Syllables, words, sentences, contexts emerge from sounds. Language becomes a field for experimentation. "Narrative islands" and "disruptions" structure the text, short interjections that can trigger entire stories.

"The Greens", ten numbered characters who improvise and exchange thoughts, perform on stage. Anton's lost notebook forms the second part of the book and provides an insight into the planned dramaturgy: language as a mushroom web, conversations in silence, misunderstandings through "slips of the tongue".

Those who get involved with "Spielbeginn" will encounter the adventure of language itself: the possibility of inventing a new language from listening experiences.

Admission €8, reduced €5

Literarische Arena e. V. in cooperation with the Evangelische Akademie Sachsen and the museums of the city of Dresden.

In 2026, the ‘Literary Alphabets’ will be held under the theme ‘Between Generations’ for the first time. The title says it all. For we want to ask: What is the state of the relationship between the generations? Do they cooperate, or do they avoid one another? What problems exist? Is there a fruitful exchange, including in the artistic and literary spheres? If not, what might that look like? What needs to change? What can we do? Do younger authors read older ones, and older authors read younger ones? How great is the interest in each other’s work?

Nadja Küchenmeister will read from her award-winning new collection of poems *Der große Wagen*, whilst Ingo Schulze will offer insights into his new novel *Das Wasser im August*, winner of the 2026 Uwe Johnson Prize.

Volker Sielaff will be talking to the pair this evening about the similarities and differences in their literary biographies. What sets Küchenmeister and Schulze apart, and what connects them? An evening exploring two exciting life journeys, an evening ‘across generations’.

• Admission €8, concessions €5

Literaturforum Dresden e. V. in cooperation with the Museums of the City of Dresden

Funded by the Cultural Foundation of the Free State of Saxony. This initiative is co-financed by tax revenue on the basis of the budget adopted by the Saxon State Parliament

Supported by the City of Dresden

• Duration: 1 hour
• Meeting point at the ticket office
• Guided tour free of charge, plus museum admission
• Book online or via the visitor services department of Dresden’s museums on +49 351 488 7272 (Mon–Fri)

• With Prof. Maria Häuser

With Dr Claudia Quiring, curator, and Jonas Malzahn, co-curator

• Duration: 1½ hours
• Meet at the ticket office
• Guided tour free of charge, plus museum admission
• Book online or via the visitor services department of the City of Dresden Museums on +49 351 488 7272 (Mon–Fri)

Photographer Christine Starke presents her 1989 photo album on the Gorbitz new-build estate.

The work documents a residential building through medium-format black-and-white photographs. The album is notable for its elaborate design, featuring a variety of fold-out sections that guide the viewer’s gaze from the outside in and from the basement to the roof. The photographs depict the architecture, the residents and their living environment in what was then a newly built housing complex.

The photo album is currently on display in the special exhibition ‘Platte Ost / West’; it will be taken out of the display case for the event.

About the photographer:
Christine Starke (born in 1951 in Dresden) has been working as a freelance photographer since 1985, specialising in portrait, documentary and architectural photography.

• Museum admission

Where does a writer come from? Which books, sounds and images accompany them – and when do these influences become their own literary language? The ‘Schreibspuren’ reading series explores these questions. To kick things off, the Dresden-based poet Jayne-Ann Igel will be our guest.

Jayne-Ann Igel has developed her own poetic language, in which the landscape becomes a resonant space for history and personal experience, whilst the language itself is never taken for granted, but is constantly being sought anew and tested.

Anyone wishing to trace the path of her writing will encounter a multitude of literary voices. Elias Canetti, Virginia Woolf and Paul Verlaine hold particular significance in this regard. Elsa Morante’s *Dream Diary* provided Jayne-Ann Igel with a key inspiration to explore the recording and literary documentation of dreams herself. Among German-speaking poets, Sarah Kirsch, Elke Erb and Johannes Bobrowski occupy a particularly important place. In these texts, she encounters questions that are significant for her own writing.

The conversation with Jayne-Ann Igel centres on such literary milestones and turning points in her writing career. Igel presents texts that have been important to her and talks about the influence they have had on her own writing.

Moderator: Patrick Wilden

• Admission €8, concessions €5

A collaboration between Literarische Arena e. V., the Evangelical Academy of Saxony and the Museums of the City of Dresden

This event is sponsored by the City of Dresden.