Yenidze

Yenidze is the name of a former cigarette factory building in Dresden, Germany. It was built between 1908 and 1909 and is used today as an office building. It is notable for its exotic outer design which is similar to the design of a mosque.

The name "Yenidze" derives from the tobacco cultivation area of Yenidze ( _tr. Yenice), a place in the Grecian part of Macedonia today known as Giannitsa. "Yenidze" was also the name of the tobacco importing company that built the factory. At the time of the construction, the factory was under the Turkish administration and wanted a factory for their imported eastern tobacco to include Near-Eastern design elements. The importer for the company, Hugo Zietz, wanted the factory to be built near the railway route near the Dresden city center.

The architect Martin Hammitzsch designed the building after suggestions from Zietz. It has large, colored dome chimneys which resemble minarets. It was sometimes referred to as the "tobacco mosque", a term which is no longer officially used as the building is not a mosque. It is a unique historical feature of the city of Dresden.

Because it is an unusual architectural monument for the city, the building was restored in 1996 and is now an office building. Underneath the dome, events take place regularly, mainly readings of fairy tales.

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* http://www.skyscraperpage.com/cities/?buildingID=50776