The Spirit

Since its conversion, the history of the Art Foundation's housing, a former industry complex, has had an inseparable connection to the visions and activities of the late Hans Peter Zimmer. 

Hans Peter Zimmer

When given the opportunity to buy the whole property, Zimmer, a manufacturer of accessories, was the major tenant of the CON-SUM area. He saw this occasion as a chance to transform the area, not only into a living and working space for artists and media producers, but as well into a vivid place for community events and meetings. He wanted this property to become a place of experience.

From this point on, Zimmer established an association made up of collective artists. In this association, tolerance was the joining principle and the simple joy of life/typical cheerful nature of the locals was not to be missed. Zimmer rented out rehearsal rooms to musicians and studios to artists and opened a disco. The disco quickly became a upcoming hot scene simply due to word of mouth advertising. Everybody who initiated something on the ground gained support from Zimmer. Every now and then, the artists paid their rental agreements with paintings or art objects.

Artist Scene

Through his initiative the businessman Hans Peter Zimmer rescued the industrial architecture, which was built in 1910 from demolition. Since 1978, the spacious area has become home to artists and creative businesses. The location became a preferred accommodation to the artists scene when they, including Wolfgang Schäfer, were confronted with the opportunity to move from the fancy harbor area to another place.

The collaboration that grew over decades between the founder and artists is continues on today, even after the death of Hans Peter Zimmer. Zimmer left the responsibility of caring on/for the foundation to Schäfer.