“L’art pour Lahr” is the name of a Lahr artists’ association: It was founded 10 years ago and has carried out various successful art projects, both indoors and outdoors (landscape art on the Langenhard). At the beginning of November its members officially opened their own gallery in the quaint old house which they had renovated themselves. It is located behind Lahr’s old city hall and opposite Hotel Löwen. After the well-visited opening and exhibition, there was a display of artistic versions of the traditional decorative little boxes (“Schächtele”) that Lahr was famous for in the past (see photos).

Gengenbach Advent Calendar: For the past five Decembers Gengenbach’s town hall has been transformed into the world’d biggest Advent calendar by using each of the building’s 24 windows to frame an illuminated glass painting each day until Christmas, the whole project sponsored by local firms. At first the illustrations were by famous artists, but this year a competition was held among local schools on the theme “From Heaven Above”. Over 500 designs were entered and 24 chosen, including two from Lahr. The children from the winning schools then created and presented the opening ceremony as “their” picture was officially unveiled to large crowds of people at the Advent Market on the historic square.

Stores closing in downtown Lahr: The first effects of the huge supermarket in the new Arena Shopping Mall are beginning to be felt in the downtown pedestrian precinct where two smaller food stores have shut down and the one in the basement underneath the KK department store has announced is will close in the spring. The drug store „Ihr Platz“, located not far from the Marktstrasse, will also soon close due to the competition from Müller’s huge drug store on the Schlossplatz. Shop-owners in the city centre are worried that the situation will decline even more – many retail premises have been empty since the Canadians left!

Lahr‘s Deputy Mayor to leave: On 4 November Roland Klenk, member of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), who has been Lahr’s mayor in charge of administrative, social, sport and cultural affairs for the past few years, was elected lord mayor of Leinfeld-Echterdingen, a community located not far from Stuttgart Airport. He will take up his new office at the beginning of 2002 but elections for his replacement will not take place in Lahr until the spring. In the province of Baden-Württemberg, being lord mayor (Oberbürgermeister) is a more than full-time job because the powerful position entails both political, financial and administrative work.

Visitor record at Europa-Park, Rust: 4 November was last day of the summer season at this theme park, after being visited by 3.1 million people (compared with 3 million last year). It is now Germany’s biggest family amusement park, having invested DM 25 million this season alone. For the first time it will open again on 1 December for Christmas and New Year as a winter experiment, to keep its hotels filled and to retain its employees throughout the year.

Lahr artists Open House: On the weekend of 10-11 November city hall‘s cultural office organized the first-ever „open studio“ days for local artists to let the public inspect their studios with work in progress. The event was a great success with a large number of interested visitors, showing just how many professional and amateur artists there are (over 30) in the vicinity and thus demonstrating once more the importance of art in local culture.

Lahr’s Chrysanthemum Festival a great success again! After three weeks of excellent weather for its colourful flower displays and events, the festival finished in a fabulous firework show on Saturday 17 November. This year‘s festival attracted about 400 bus tours, about 800 train travellers and about 200 extra hotel guests, over 12 000 flower lottery tickets were sold: numbers that far exceeded all previous statistics! Lahr is gaining a reputation as the „Chrysanthemum City“ (see photos)!

Canadian Community Centre and Astra Cinema demolished: The flat-roofed building which was built by the French Forces in the 1950s had suffered from flooding even before the Canadian Forces left and has been very neglected since 1994, apart from the Astra cinema which continued to show films in conjunction with Lahr’s “Film Palette” because it was rented by its owner-managers. The Provincial Medical Diagnostic Services (MDK) constructed their administrative offices on the former parking lot next door several years ago but now need to expand so they bought the former community centre last year. The cinema closed down this summer; The furnishings, curtains and 360 seats were sold to the Stuttgart Theatre, On 13 November the first workers began gutting the interior, then bulldozers moved in to complete the destruction and the rubble will be used to fill in the basement. It’s a sad end to a piece of Lahr’s history but at least the new office space will provide jobs for local people. (see photos)

National recognition for Aenne Burda: On 20 November at her home in Offenburg, Burda Fashion Magazine publisher Aenne Burda (aged 92) was the first woman in the province of Baden-Württemberg to receive the federal medal of merit with star, Germany’s highest award. She became one of the most influential business personalities in public life during the German post-war economic boom (Wirtschaftswunder). She founded her company in Offenburg in 1950 and turned it into one of the world’s largest fashion publishing concerns.

Lahr airport granted customs post: On 28 November the German Federal Finance Ministry approved the direct import of air freight through Lahr by agreeing to deploy customs officers from their headquarters in Appenweier as needed, at least for a probationary period of one year. Thus the Black Forest Airport (as the company is called, part of the British Wiggins Group) can use its landing permission for cargo planes to actually establish a viable business.