Renovation of the City of Ilmenau

The old city area of Ilmenau and the beltway area for the founding fathers had been heavily neglected over the decades. A lack of financing prevented investment into much needed repairs. The old city area was collapsing. However, it remained almost complete without extensive demolition. In 1992, Ilmenau was accepted into the Städtebauförderungsprogramm [city construction sponsorship program] sponsored by the Free State of Thuringia. In order to be able to restore the historically developed city using appropriate instruments for organized development, the City decided to identify the Historical City Core, Train Station Suburb and Langewiesen Street areas, which were in need of renovation.

Thanks to the relocation of the Federal Highways B4, 87 and 88 to the periphery of the city, both the systematic pacification of the city traffic as well as the constant, careful renewal of the entire inner-city was able to succeed. Medium-sized companies who could not offer the inner city area any more potential for development could divert to new areas with the opening of a small commercial area at the edge of the city. The remaining areas have been re-purposed for residential and urgently needed parking facilities.

Within the last twenty years, the public parks for the city of the university and Goethe in the Thuringian Forest benefited from increasing attractiveness, made progress with the gradual renovation of the historical building materials and residential building took the place of inner-city industrial and commercial industries.

The modified structural conditions no longer focused on continuing renovation activities exclusively for the correction of drawbacks in the construction of the city, but rather also on taking control of the in-depth conversion of the structures. Ilmenau, which is now the mature old city with its high density in various functions and options, the Technische Universität [technical college] with its successor and research institutes oriented on technology and the middle tier. In them lies the decisive potential for development for the future. The combination of the city and campus began strongly with the First City Development Design 2002. Even at that point in time, it was known that only a connection between the poles of university life, cultural city life and high technology could work together. Many industries yielded after the almost ten years of city renovation in the Langewiesen Street renovation area. In addition to strengthening the student residential option, the focus has been on the organization of successor institutions oriented towards technology and the university.