Over the past ten years, important events of commemorating 9th October have become an inherent part of the event calendar and inextricably linked with this date for the people in Leipzig:

• the Speech on Democracy (since 2001, in St. Nicholas’s Church)
  
• the Democracy Forum (since 2001, in the Gewandhaus)
  
• a symposium on urgent questions of the time (since 2000, in the Forum of Contemporary History)
  
• the awarding of the “Prize for the Freedom and the Future of the Media” (since 2007, awarded by Medienstiftung der Sparkasse Leipzig)
  
• the light installation “Night of the Candles” (since 2007, on Nikolaikirchhof square)
  
• the Film Night (since 2002, in the Museum in the “Round Corner”)
  

Commemorating the Peaceful Revolution in public spaces means creating and designing places to remember. Since 1999 the city of Leipzig has explicitly encouraged remembrance by combining a living culture of commemorating with a visible expression of it in public spaces. Above all in the immediate surroundings of the authentic sites of the Peaceful Revolution and directly referring to these places, newly created monuments bear witness to the events of 1989.

 
Memorial plaque “State Security” (Dittrichring 24)

A reproduction cast of the original house sign of the former Leipzig State Security District Administration (Dittrichring 24) bears the following inscription: “From 1950 until 1989 the Leipzig district administration of Stasi was accommodated here. Citizens occupied the house during the Monday demonstration of 4th December 1989”. It points to the place from which Stasi had ruled over the fortune of the city and the citizens for almost 40 years. It also pays tribute to the peaceful occupation of the building as crucial part of the political takeover of Leipzig’s citizens on their way to a democratic renewal of the country. The Leipzig artist Matthias Klemm created the plaque.

 
Light installation and fountain (Nikolaikirchhof)

Peace prayers and Monday demonstrations have made Leipzig’s St. Nicholas’s Church a symbol for the Peaceful Revolution of 1989 worldwide. In 2003, with the support of the Stiftung “Lebendige Stadt”, Nikolaikirchhof was turned into a place of remembrance. The ideas for the new design of the square came from a competition that had been initiated by Kulturstiftung Leipzig together with the city of Leipzig and Stiftung “Lebendige Stadt”.

Core pieces of the new design are – in addition to the column put up there in 1999 – the light installation of the Leipzig artist Tilo Schulz with 144 coloured glass cubes set into the pavement and a granite fountain drafted by David Chipperfield (London).

The light installation “Public Light” on Nikolaikirchhof symbolises the gradual growing of peaceful assemblies by switching on light cube after light cube at random. Thus it reminds of the importance of public space as a podium for the free expression of opinions of politically mature citizens.

The fountain has an elegant and simple layout and contributes to making the square next to the church a place for communication and calmness.

• Speech on Democracy