ECOOP / Darmstadt – A City of Science and the Arts

Surrounded by the densely wooded recreational areas of the Odenwald and the Bergstraße, the Taunus and Spessart, Darmstadt lies 30 km to the south of Frankfurt and 60 km to the north of Heidelberg, i.e. it is situated right in the heart of the southern Rhine-Main-Area, which is one of Europe´s most commercially flourishing regions, and is only twenty minutes´ drive away from the international airport Frankfurt on the Main.

With a population of about 140.000, Darmstadt is a city without skyscrapers, urban motorways or extensive office and administration blocks, but with a face that is still characterized by Darmstadt´s development into the grand-ducal residence to which many urban features bear witness. Take, for example, the baroque castle in the city centre facing the old town hall built at the time of the Renaissance or the great number of parks and small castles spreading across the municipal area. This may give the impression that Darmstadt is a provincial town with modest ambitions, but it is precisely for those reasons that its inhabitants enjoy a friendly atmosphere in pleasant surroundings.

The typical Darmstädter likes to refer to himself as “Heiner”, and “Heiner” seems a little aloof from a stranger´s point of view. But whoever wants to get to know him will discover personal qualities such as his open-mindedness, his inquisitive curiosity, and his humorous, good-natured self-criticism. A certain element of the Enlightenment is also common to the city´s great sons who, however, did not always have an easy time in Darmstadt: Justus Liebig, the founder of agricultural chemistry; Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, physicist and aphorist; and Georg Büchner, doctor, poet and revolutionary.

“Darmstadt keeps the arts alive”. This advertising slogan has been used for a long time to attract people to the city and its cultural ambience: the ensemble of Art Nouveau Museum and Art Nouveau villas on Mathildenhöhe, the artists´ quarter on Rosenhöhe, the Porzellanschlößchen (which houses an exhibition of precious faiences and porcelain from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries), the Landesmuseum (Hesse State Museum), and the State Theatre.

In 1997 the city´s name was officially changed to Wissenschaftsstadt Darmstadt (Darmstadt – City of Science) in appreciation of the city’s good reputation as a place of many public and private scientific institutions, research-orientated branches of industry, and three institutions of higher education. Although it is a well-known location of chemical and specialized engineering companies as well as the Graphic Trades (Publishing, Printing and Paper Processing), Darmstadt tends to be known as a major centre of Information and Communication Technology due to the large number of software firms that have been set up in the city and its surrounding area during the last few years. This development is well known among experts in the respective fields who therefore, as a token of respect, refer to Darmstadt as the “secret software-capital of Germany”. The reasons for the city being attractive for this future-orientated branch of industry are closely connected with the profile and potential for higher education of the city’s Technische Universität (Darmstadt University of Technology) and Fachhochschule Darmstadt (Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences).

On the one hand, former students at these places of learning, who are now engineers and computer scientists and wish to become self-employed or are planning to set up a company, are actively supported by the Technologie- und Innovationszentrum -TIZ- (Centre of Technology and Innovation), which was founded in 1999 on the initiative of the University and the city. On the other, research institutes and software firms, whose efficiency depends largely on successful graduate recruitment, choose to establish themselves in Darmstadt in order to take advantage of the availability of highly qualified manpower in the fields of Computer Science, Electrical Engineering and Microelectronics.

The city´s hallmark as Wissenschaftsstadt Darmstadt is also based on the traditionally close links between scientific institutions and the TU Darmstadt, whose successful cooperation in the areas of teaching and research is the reason for the high level of scientific activity of institutions such as the Technologiezentrum – TZD - der Deutschen Telekom AG (Research and Technology Institute of the German Telecom, PLC), the Gesellschaft für Schwerionenforschung – GSI – (Heavy-Ion Research Institute), four institutes of the Fraunhofer Gesellschaft - FhG - (the Fraunhofer Society): the Institut für Graphische Datenverarbeitung - IGD - (Institute for Computer Graphics), the Fraunhofer Institut für Integrierte Publikations- und Informationssysteme - IPSI - (Integrated Publication and Information Systems Institute), the Fraunhofer Institut für Sichere Telekooperation- SIT - (Institute for Secure Telecooperation), and the Institut für Betriebsfestigkeit - LBF - (Institute for Structural Fatigue Strength). Moreover, the European Space Operation Centre - ESOC and the European Organization for Meteorological Weather Satellites – EUMETSAT - enable the scientists of the TU Darmstadt to utilize international links for their work.

Darmstadt, however, is not only a city of science and technology where people like to work, but it is also a place where they enjoy their leisure time by exploring the many activities and events that are on offer, e.g. by attending a concert, visiting an exhibition, having a stroll around a traditional market or taking part in a boules game in the plane-tree grove on Mathildenhöhe. Once a year all the people identifying with “Heiner” celebrate in their own honour: on the first weekend in July the Heinerfest is held, and then the whole city becomes one great fairground with merry-go-rounds, shooting galleries, a ghost train and hot dog stalls. This shows another face of Darmstadt.

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