Club centre "Arthur Lange" Röhrsdorf

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On 10 May 2025, Mayor Michael Stötzer ceremoniously opened the "Arthur Lange" club, sports and cultural centre at Heinrich-Heine-Straße 7 and symbolically handed it over to the Röhrsdorf local council.

The first floor of the building, which had been empty for a long time, was reactivated. The result is a furnished, divisible multifunctional room and another exhibition room of the same size, in which the model "Röhrsdorf 100 years ago" has found a new home. The rooms are complemented by new sanitary facilities, a cloakroom and a small kitchen. In the stairwell, visitors can experience the "Ribbon of History", a permanent installation with details about the town's history.

The association centre is also the starting point of the "Arthur Lange Trail" through the village. In addition to exhibitions by regional artists, the centre offers space for activities by local associations. The project was a long-cherished wish of the village and the result is a place of culture, encounters and exchange - a public square. 325,000 euros from the Capital of Culture budget were available for the realisation.

The planning work was carried out by the architects studio2architekten from Chemnitz. The construction work was carried out by companies including Baugeschäft Gebrüder Meyner GmbH from Lichtenau and Hoch- und Ausbau Gesellschaft Waldheim mbH. A total of 15 trades were involved in the realisation.

Arthur Lange was born on 9 March 1875 as an illegitimate child under the name Arthur Oscar Meinig in Röhrsdorf near Chemnitz. In 1881, the family moved to Meissen, where he attended secondary school until 1889.

Education and artistic development

Due to his artistic talent, Lange began extensive training at the Königliche Porzellan-Manufaktur Meißen in 1890, studying under Richard Müller and Adrian Emerich Andresen, among others. On 6 April 1895, he was adopted by his stepfather, the cabinetmaker Heinrich Richard Paul Lange from Cölln near Meissen - possibly also to encourage him together with his half-brother Christoph, who also worked at the porcelain manufactory.

From the 1897/98 school year, Arthur Lange attended the Royal Saxon School of Arts and Crafts in Dresden, department for figurative modelling under Professor Hugo Spieler. He received the school's Silver Prize Medal at Easter 1898 for his outstanding achievements and continued his training until 1899.

From 1899 to Easter 1903, he worked again at the Meissen porcelain manufactory. A design drawing and two porcelain figurines from this period have been preserved. In 1902, he was sent to the World Exhibition in Paris on behalf of the manufactory.

At Easter 1903, he began studying at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Dresden, where he worked in Professor Robert Diez's studio until 9 April 1908. He received Saxony's highest artistic honour - the Rome Prize, which came with a travel grant of 3,000 marks and enabled him to study in Italy, Bulgaria and Egypt - for his group of figures "Source of Power", which he exhibited at the Dresden Art Exhibition in 1908.

Work and influence

In 1908, Lange began designing the figures for the Röhrsdorf Fairytale Fountain, which was completed in 1911 and officially inaugurated on 26 November 1911.

He was also a co-founder of the Dresden Artists' Association, which was founded on 6 November 1909 and regularly organised exhibitions from 1910 onwards. Arthur Lange was its first chairman from 1928 until his death.

On 28 September 1926, he visited his birthplace once again at the invitation of Röhrsdorf's mayor Robert Fischer. The occasion was a proposal for a memorial fountain to mark the 25th anniversary of the unification of Löwenhain with Röhrsdorf, but this was not realised.

Until his early death on 11 June 1929 in Dresden, Arthur Lange created over 300 sculptural works - including portrait busts, monuments, small sculptures, medals and architectural sculptures in materials such as plaster, porcelain, bronze, marble, sandstone, granite, cast stone and, finally, wood.

The funeral service was attended by Dresden's artistic community and numerous dignitaries, including Mayor Fischer from Röhrsdorf. Lange's urn was buried at St John's Cemetery in Meissen.

Only a few of his larger works of art have survived - including the Röhrsdorf Fairytale Fountain and the Atlas figure at Leipzig Central Station.

Lange considered the design for the Chemnitz market fountain (1912) to be his most important, but unrealised work. In a competition model made of plaster, eight bronze giants were to support a wreath, from the centre of which an eight-metre-high column with a pensive figure - similar to Rodin's "Thinker" - would rise. An obituary from 1931 describes the unrealised Chemnitz market fountain:

"A gigantic work, measured purely in terms of the quantity of work. It is a pity that the Chemnitz city council is now hesitant about the plan to erect the fountain."
(Source: Das schöne Sachsen, issue 3, March 1931, p. 69 - Necrology by Dr Georg Paech)