Erholungshaus Leverkusen

In September 1908 the Bayer works opened a recreation house for its employees in Wiesdorf: a neo-Baroque building with a theatre, dining rooms, a billiard hall and a gymnasium, put up for the company's own associations and celebrations. Fire destroyed the stage tower in 1975 and the rebuilding brought modern machinery with it; the auditorium was renovated again in 1998, before the ninetieth anniversary. Some 780 people sit across its three tiers, facing a revolving stage. The house is now the centre of Bayer Kultur's public programme — the annual stARTfestival and its academy for young artists, the Leverkusen jazz days, and a season of music, dance and theatre open to the whole city.