Alter Platz, or old square

What I particularly love about Klagenfurt is the architectural ensemble around Alter Platz and the square itself. If you look down at the ground, you notice small cubes of white stone, arranged at regular intervals. They mark the area where the market once stood, where trade once took place. When I pass through here with my children, I always try to make them imagine what it was like in the past: the houses were made of wood, there were open hearths, and fires could easily break out. That is why it was essential to bring water into the centre of the city, right here, where Alter Platz is today. And bringing water was a remarkable undertaking. Klagenfurt has the Lendkanal, which connects Lake Wörthersee with the city centre. The Lendhafen is located on Villacher Straße. There you can see splendid stone walls, and also a particular tree: the ailanthus, known as the “tree of heaven”, a non-native species. It can also be seen at the kärnten.museum. There are many connections between the city and the museum. But returning to the canal: the Lendkanal brought not only goods from the lake, such as fish, but also the water needed to extinguish fires. And today, when the winters are cold enough, people still skate on the frozen canal. We often do it with the children. It creates a special atmosphere, like in the paintings of Pieter Bruegel, those scenes on the ice in which time seems to stand still. And the ailanthus too, that “foreign” tree species which can also be seen in our museum, tells a story: before the Second World War, it did not exist here. Now it grows prolifically along the canal, and it is difficult to eliminate, spreading very rapidly. It is an invasive species, of course. But it is precisely for this reason that it has also become a subject of interest, so much so that it now has a place in the kärnten.museum. And so, in the end, the circle closes: from Alter Platz to the Lendkanal, all the way to our museum.