TYPO3 Powers the City of Chemnitz’s New Portal as European Capital of Culture

The City of Chemnitz is the third-largest city in Saxony, Germany, with approximately 250,000 inhabitants. Chemnitz was named as the European Capital of Culture in 2025, serving as an important cultural and economic hub. Chemnitz.de exists as an informational portal for citizens, business and tourists. With the main focus placed on accessibility and reaching a broad audience, the portal ensures information is easily accessible and updated. 

"The change of the managing agency and CMS was a demanding task for the City of Chemnitz's website – but it was handled excellently. From day one, the chemistry with Netresearch was right: we value the reliable, collaborative partnership on equal footing."

— Thomas Liebert, Team Leader Internet, City of Chemnitz

From the onset, the migration of Chemnitz.de presented numerous challenges under a strict project timeline. The relaunch would need to happen by late 2024 to ensure the site was live for their 2025 European Capital of Culture title. A public tender was issued to find an agency and a CMS that was suitable for the migration and relaunch. Netresearch DTT GmbH was the selected agency due to their proven experience in handling large-scale data migrations and expertise with TYPO3 CMS. 

The relaunch challenges included seamless migration of high volume content including over 16,000 documents and 80GB of media data. This transfer would need to preserve internal links, meta data and references to TYPO3 CMS. Without direct system access, the Netresearch team could not extract content directly which meant they would need to work closely with the city’s IT team, deepening the collaboration. 

The website boasts high accessibility standards and with this migration, the new website needed to fully comply with WCAG guidelines. The goal was to provide an inclusive digital experience for all citizens, including those with disabilities and impairments. A key priority of the relaunch was ensuring seamless access in multiple languages, strengthening communication with diverse communities. Lastly, the migration would require multiple system integrations which meant automatically pulling key public data (event listings, construction updates, municipal services, etc.) from external databases.

The work began in May 2024 and the go live was set for the end of the year. The City of Chemnitz chose TYPO3 CMS due to its ability to handle large-scale web projects in the public sector. Serving as a future-proof solution, the transition to TYPO3 ensured workflow automation, enhanced accessibility and structured content management. The project focus included ensuring full accessibility compliance, integrating external data sources and automating content migration. 

The full content migration was the bulk of the project due to the volume and complexity of the process. To ensure a seamless transition, automated quality assurance was implemented using BackstopJS which compared screenshots from the old system to identify and correct discrepancies. 

Accessibility and user experience enhancements were critical to the integrity of this relaunch. A strong emphasis was placed on creating a barrier-free experience for users in the navigation and overall layout. Templates were modernized and usability was improved by ensuring compliance with WCAG accessibility guidelines. 

Due to TYPO3’s workplace features, editorial workflows and mutli-user management were streamlined and improved. Structured access rights and roles for nearly 100 editors were implemented to ensure access was managed accordingly. By implementing the TYPO3 workplace function, the process was enhanced with added email notifications, comment functionalities and improved editor collaboration. 

The result is a future-proof digital platform that enhances citizen engagement while significantly reducing editorial effort. The project was completed and Chemnitz.de went live as projected in December 2024. Due to TYPO3’s suitability for large, content-rich, multilingual web portals, the migration and relaunch were a resounding success. The platform now provides inclusive access in multiple languages, ensuring that all citizens regardless of background or ability can engage with public information. The City of Chemnitz now has a future-proof, highly flexible solution to serve their audience. 

Netresearch successfully executed a complex migration and relaunch on a tight timeline, thanks to their deep understanding of TYPO3 and their agile working style. The collaboration was both smooth and productive, leading to a strong outcome and a growing partnership. Choosing the right CMS is only part of the equation, partnering with the right agency is key to building a secure, scalable digital presence.

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