Every design for Neumünster

Neumünster takes its name from a monastery: when the missionary Vicelinus built a new one here, the Latin novum monasterium slowly pushed out the older names of Wippendorf and Faldera. Faldera survives as a district, and the town still stands where the Schwale joins the Stör in the very middle of Schleswig-Holstein.

The Tuch und Technik Textilmuseum tells the story the whole town once lived by. Neumünster was a centre of the cloth trade from its first fulling mill until the last factory closed, and many streets still carry the shape of that industrial past. Daily life today runs to a different rhythm: trains crossing at one of the region's busiest junctions, trade fairs at the Holstenhallen, and the designer outlet drawing shoppers from far beyond the town. On summer evenings the Gerisch Skulpturenpark in Brachenfeld hosts concerts among its sculptures, and families head for the Rencks Park or the Faldera-Park.

Then there is the Großflecken, the long square at the heart of town where Neumünster rioted in the revolution of 1848, protested again in the inflation years and still gathers today: a wide open space in the centre with the whole town passing across it.