I attach great importance to my appearance. This has always been the case and for two reasons. Firstly, I have a long tradition in the textile industry, which is why I am also known as the "city of silk". Secondly, architecture and design play a very special role for me in Krefeld. You will quickly realise how closely the two are linked when you visit me. However, I will briefly explain the background in advance so that you know which places you should definitely visit.
A look back: the first merchants who traded in fabrics such as silk and turned them into expensive clothes settled here at the beginning of the 17th century. Supported by the Prussian royal family, the silk industry soon took on a monopoly position in Krefeld and there were times when more than half of my population earned their money from the fine cloth. The two industrialists Hermann Lange and Dr Josef Esters, who had two villas built at the end of the 1920s, became particularly wealthy. They were designed by none other than Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, one of the leading representatives of Bauhaus. This is how the New Objectivity movement came to Krefeld and with it a penchant for the avant-garde.
Together with the Kaiser Wilhelm Museum, a magnificent Gründerzeit building in the style of the Italian Renaissance, the two Bauhaus buildings now form the Krefeld Art Museums. Three exciting venues for contemporary fine and applied art with a focus on the 20th and 21st centuries. One name in particular will catch your eye when you visit the museum. Joseph Beuys. The man who divided the art scene like no other was not only born very close by on the Lower Rhine, but has also left his mark on me in Krefeld. Why don't you go on a search?
You should definitely plan a visit to the German Textile Museum, which is located in my medieval neighbourhood of Linn. Around 30,000 textiles from antiquity to the present day are stored here in specially air-conditioned archives, which I only bring to light for special occasions and exhibitions. So let me know if you want to drop by. And if you're already in Linn anyway, I invite you to visit the moated castle of the same name. Although it was only rebuilt in the 1950s, it resembles the medieval model down to the smallest detail. The annual highlight of the calendar of events is, how could it be otherwise, the flax market on the Whitsun weekend.
