The Leipziger Baumwollspinnerei (''Leipzig Cotton Mill'') is an industrial site in

Leipzig Leipzig (, ; ; Upper Saxon: ; ) is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Saxony. The city has a population of 628,718 inhabitants as of 2023. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, eighth-largest city in Ge ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

. Parts of this 10-hectare site in the locality of Lindenau are used today by

art galleries An art gallery is a room or a building in which visual art is displayed. In Western cultures from the mid-15th century, a gallery was any long, narrow covered passage along a wall, first used in the sense of a place for art in the 1590s. The long ...

, studios and restaurants. Founded in 1884, the business developed into the largest cotton mill in continental Europe over the next quarter century. During this time, an entire industrial town with over 20 factories, workers' housing, kindergartens and a recreational area, grew in western Leipzig. The mill reached its maximum extent in 1907, with 240,000 spindles processing cotton across a working area of about . Until the

First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

cotton Cotton (), first recorded in ancient India, is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus '' Gossypium'' in the mallow family Malvaceae. The fiber is almost pure ...

production took place on the cotton plantations of Leipzig, Cherhami near Sadani and Kissanke on the Wami in

German East Africa German East Africa (GEA; ) was a German colonial empire, German colony in the African Great Lakes region, which included present-day Burundi, Rwanda, the Tanzania mainland, and the Kionga Triangle, a small region later incorporated into Portugu ...

. Up to 4,000 people worked there, until production of thread was halted in 1993 following the

reunification of Germany German reunification () was the process of re-establishing Germany as a single sovereign state, which began on 9 November 1989 and culminated on 3 October 1990 with the dissolution of the German Democratic Republic and the integration of i ...

several years earlier. Subsequently, the area was repopulated by a mixture of people including craftsmen, self-employed, and above all artists, many belonging to the so-called "

New Leipzig School The New Leipzig School () is a movement in German painting, centred in the city of Leipzig after the German reunification. The usage and origins of this term are debated. History and characteristics The Leipzig School (painting), Alte Leipziger S ...

". More than half of the available space has since been rented out again for new purposes. Ten galleries, a communal arts center (''Halle 14''), and around 100 artists (including

Neo Rauch Neo Rauch (; born 18 April 1960) is a German artist whose paintings mine the intersection of his personal history with the politics of industrial alienation. His work reflects the influence of socialist realism, and owes a debt to Surrealists ...

Jim Whiting Jim Whiting (born 1951) is a British artist and inventor. He was born in Paris and spent his early childhood in Salisbury (now Harare), Zimbabwe before returning to the UK with his family in 1959. He studied Electronic Engineering & Systems Cont ...

, Hans Aichinger, and Matthias Weischer) have all settled at the site, as well as restaurants, fashion designers, architects, printers, a goldsmith, a pottery, a film club, a porcelain manufacturer, and an arts supply store. Antonin Girardin writes that the art complex Baumwollspinnerei has 22 mentions in the international press which produce Leipzig's image as a city of cultural innovation. The site contained several platform interchanges from a now-disused railway between Lindenau and Plagwitz. Parts of the platforms are still intact.

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Pinsel statt Spule
Nina Apin, ''

Die Tageszeitung ''Die Tageszeitung'' (, "The Daily Newspaper"), stylized as ''die tageszeitung'' and commonly referred to as ''taz'', is a German daily newspaper. It is run as a cooperative – it is administered by its employees and a co-operative of sharehol ...

'', 6 April 2005.
'The hottest place on earth'
Gordon Burn, ''

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'', 1 February 2007
'Wunderbar! The best of Germany'
Andrew Eames and Barbara Geier, ''

'', 19 March 2011.
Mit vielen Wassern gewaschen: Leipzigs neue Ufer
Beatrice Härig, Monumente Online, February 2008.

Sigrun Hellmich, Goethe Institut, July 2009. * {{Authority control Art museums and galleries in Germany Buildings and structures in Leipzig Tourist attractions in Saxony Cotton mills in Germany Economy of German East Africa