Messe Stuttgart is a

convention center A convention center (American English; or conference centre in British English) is a large building that is designed to hold a convention, where individuals and groups gather to promote and share common interests. Convention centers typica ...

next to Stuttgart International Airport, 12 km south of

Stuttgart Stuttgart (; Swabian: ; ) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. It is located on the Neckar river in a fertile valley known as the ''Stuttgarter Kessel'' (Stuttgart Cauldron) and lies an hour from the Sw ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwee ...

. It is the ninth-biggest convention center in Germany. The new Messe Stuttgart site, completed in 2007, is right next to the A8 autobahn (highway). The center is accessible from Stuttgart Flughafen/Messe station on the local suburban railway network. Buses also travel to Messe Stuttgart from nearby Esslingen, Göppingen,

Reutlingen Reutlingen (; Swabian: ''Reitlenga'') is a city in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is the capital of the eponymous district of Reutlingen. As of June 2018, it has a population of 115,818. Reutlingen has a university of applied sciences, which ...

and Tübingen. There are plans to link Messe Stuttgart and Stuttgart International Airport to the proposed Stuttgart–Wendlingen high-speed railway between Stuttgart and Ulm by 2019 as part of the Stuttgart 21 Project.

Parking garage

One of the most striking features of Messe Stuttgart is its huge parking garage, which spans the A8 Autobahn and can accommodate 4,200 vehicles on five levels. Display rights for the 4-ton logo on both sides of the garage's bridge were sold to Robert Bosch GmbH, which paid around 20 million

euro The euro ( symbol: €; code: EUR) is the official currency of 19 out of the member states of the European Union (EU). This group of states is known as the eurozone or, officially, the euro area, and includes about 340 million citizens . ...

s for exclusive advertising space. The logo is the second-largest illuminated sign in the world and the biggest logo in the world after the unlit Hollywood Sign.'' (German) 'Bosch will ins Guinnessbuch der Rekorde.' '' (Bosch wants to make it into the Guinness Book of Records), ''Stuttgarter Zeitung'' Newspaper, 24 September 2007

Brief history

Before completion of the new site next to Stuttgart Airport, Messe Stuttgart had been based in the Killesberg suburb of

for more than 50 years. As nearby housing estates encroached on the old site's parking and roads, it was closed down to make way for public housing for seniors and apartments.

Criticism

Immediately after opening, Messe Stuttgart was plagued by a number of unexpected teething problems, ranging from faulty barcode readers at the entrances to poor signage. Construction of the new site, originally approved in 1993, was subject to repeated delays. First, local farmers refused to sell their land after successful lobbying by nearby residents. After compulsory repossession of land was approved by the

Baden-Württemberg Baden-Württemberg (; ), commonly shortened to BW or BaWü, is a German state () in Southwest Germany, east of the Rhine, which forms the southern part of Germany's western border with France. With more than 11.07 million inhabitants across a ...

State Government, demonstrations led to a string of court cases between landowners and the company hired to build the new center. An agreement was eventually reached between the local government and landowners amid cries from local residents that the farmers had "sold out" to politicians and had only gone along with lobbyists in the first place to maximize returns on the sale of land.

References

External links

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Messe Stuttgart plans (German)
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