page_title: Suhl
section_title: Cityscape
hierarchical_section_title: Suhl / Culture, sights and cityscape / Cityscape
caption_attribution_description: For documentary purposes the German Federal Archive often retained the original image captions, which may be erroneous, biased, obsolete or politically extreme. Suhl, Stadthalle, Wohnhochhäuser ADN-ZB Schaar 27-5-74 Suhl: Über 36.000 Einwohner zählt die Bezirksstadt Suhl, in der über ein Drittel der insgesamt 6 500 Neubauwohnungen nach dem VIII. Parteitag der SED geschaffen wurden. Ein Anziehungspunkt im Zentrum der Stadt ist die neue "Stadthalle der Freundschaft" (1.).
context_page_description: Suhl is a city in Thuringia, Germany, located 50 kilometres SW of Erfurt, 110 kilometres NE of Würzburg and 130 kilometres N of Nuremberg. With its 37,000 inhabitants, it is the smallest of the six urban districts within Thuringia. Together with its northern neighbour-town Zella-Mehlis, Suhl forms the largest urban area in the Thuringian Forest with a population of 46,000. The region around Suhl is marked by up to 1,000-meter high mountains, including Thuringia's highest peak, the Großer Beerberg, approximately 5 kilometres NE of the city centre.
  Suhl was first mentioned in 1318 and stayed a small mining and metalworking town, until industrialization broke through in late 19th century and Suhl became a centre of Germany's arms production, specialized on rifles and guns with companies such as Sauer & Sohn. Furthermore, the engineering industry was based in Suhl with Simson, a famous car and moped producer. In 1952, Suhl became one of East Germany's 14 district capitals, which led to a government-directed period of urban growth and conversion. Its results – a typical 1960s concrete architecture-marked city centre – are defining to the present.
context_section_description: Suhl's cityscape is marked by the lack of flat ground to build on, which is why the city's morphology appears picked and incoherent. The city centre developed during the Middle Ages around the Marktplatz and the Steinweg (as main street) next to the confluence of Lauter and Rimbach river. Later, the city grew to the east and south to the bordering hills and valleys. After World War II, Suhl became the capital of one of the 14 Bezirks in the GDR in 1952. During the following decades, the city doubled its population, many Plattenbau settlements developed at the periphery and the centre got largely converted. The old town around Friedrich-König-Straße was demolished during the 1960s, as were the quarters east of Topfmarkt later. They were rebuilt with contemporary concrete architecture and Plattenbau buildings. The new city centre with all the important public buildings was developed around Friedrich-König-Straße, even with large-scale high-rise buildings. After the reunification, the population shrunk heavily, leading to high vacancy rates. The government reacted to this by demolishing some of the Plattenbau settlements at the periphery; some buildings stood only for 20 years. Compared with other East German cities, the fight against vacancy was simpler in Suhl, because vacancy was concentrated at the periphery and not in the city centre (as in the most older cities in East Germany), which made it easy to demolish and renature the areas. A larger problem is vacancy in shops in the city centre, because the retail sector in Suhl has also been in a crisis for many years.
caption: The new city centre in 1974
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