The time has finally come: we are proud to announce the winners of the State Prize for Bavarian Creative Places 2024! These four places bring cities and communities to life with their creative energy. They inspire, connect, drive innovation and strengthen the local and regional cultural and creative industries. At these creative locations, cultural and creative professionals come together, ideas blossom and projects become reality. This is where art and culture are created, knowledge flows and successes are celebrated.

Thank you to all the creative locations that applied to us in 2023/2024. We are particularly pleased that we can also draw attention to our map of creative locations in Bavaria at this point. Over 100 creative locations can now be found there. Have you applied & not yet registered? You can do so at any time. Let's show the whole world the variety of creative places in Bavaria!

Landrichterhof, spa, monastery ... vacant. A cultural association saves a beautiful complex from decay. The members organize an annual cultural festival for young and old. Then strangers burn down almost everything and the rebuilding starts all over again. How the Passau keep defies the destructive rage and revives a magical place.

With this special honor, the commitment shown to strengthening the cultural landscape in Passau receives special and well-deserved recognition.

Jürgen Dupper/Mayor of the City of Passau

The people of Neuburg celebrated its opening exuberantly - over forty years ago. Not much was left of the euphoria surrounding the market hall at the time. Instead, the building became a symbol of vacancy and a lack of ideas in the middle of the former royal seat. What could be done? Last year, the Brückenkollektiv association transformed the market hall into an art gallery for three months. A success. For the association and the city.

The citizens and tradespeople have seen what is possible in Neuburg.

Johann Habermeyer/Mayor of the City of Neuburg

Despite its unassuming exterior, Nuremberg's Z-Bau offers plenty of space for a wide variety of contemporary cultural trends. The area has an eventful history behind it. It took some time for the former barracks to become the "House of Contemporary Culture". However, the active participants more than live up to this claim - and show how diverse culture can be today. From hip hop to the Comic Café.

In a very short space of time, Nuremberg's Z-Bau has succeeded in becoming an indispensable cultural and creative venue for the city. This is where artists and collectives work, where ideas emerge that shape city life and urban society, where a passion for new and innovative things pulsates.

Prof. Dr. Julia Lehner/ Mayor of the City of Nuremberg

Presenting, organizing, networking: Since 2015, Regensburg has had a central point of contact for the creative industry, where founders, creative professionals, the public and academia come together to contribute to the city of the future - realized according to the ideas of creative professionals and yet communal. The Degginger shows that this balancing act can work.

The Degginger is not only a third place for networking and creative value creation, but also an elementary component of the economic policy strategy and thus a decisive factor for the creative city of Regensburg.

Gertrud Maltz-Schwarzfischer/ Lord Mayor of the City of Regensburg