Yenidze Cigarette Factory

On one of his journeys to the Orient, the factory owner Hugo Zietz had an amazing brainwave! Why not build a cigarette factory in the style of a mosque as a contrast to the predominantly baroque buildings in the city of Dresden? He even named it after a tobacco growing area in Turkey, Yenidze. The model for the building was the Mameluke tomb of Khair Bak in Cairo. The factory was built between 1909 in 1912 and is generally acknowledged to be the first reinforced steel skeleton construction in Germany. Other noteworthy features include a long chimney disguised as a minaret, 600 differently shaped windows and a 20 metre high dome made of coloured glass.

Zeitz sold the building in 1924 to the Reemtsma cigarette empire. It was heavily damaged during air raids on Dresden in February 1945, and after makeshift repairs the factory began to produce cigarettes again in 1947. From 1953 to 1989 the building was used as the central tobacco office of the German Democratic Republic (the so-called “VEB Tabakkontor”). In the 1990s the derelict building was privatised, repaired with financial help from a property fund, and put to new usage as a commercial and office building. The restaurant in the dome offers guests an impressive panoramic view of the city.