Weimar's Sendehalle to become new cultural and educational centre

The former Sendehalle in Weimar, a 5,000‑square‑metre building erected during the Nazi era as a Nietzsche memorial hall, will be transformed into a free‑access cultural and educational venue. After serving as a DDR radio house, falling into long‑term vacancy and briefly operating as an illegal rave space, the property was sold at a forced auction in November 2024 to the Stiftung Sendehalle Weimar.

Renovation work is slated to begin in 2027 and finish by mid‑2029. The refurbished centre will host concerts, readings, exhibitions, conferences, festivals and programmes for local schools and universities. Graffiti and other traces of its recent sub‑cultural use will be preserved, and a historic audio‑walk will be developed together with the Bauhaus‑Universität Weimar and Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk (MDR). The building is already used intermittently; the city halted planned events in April 2025 over safety concerns, and an official blessing ceremony is scheduled for 15 August 2026.