Large letters above the main entrance read Kubaa, the abbreviation for the Kulturbahnhof or Cultural Centre Aalen. Although the German name suggests so, it actually never was a train station, but instead, a repair shop for steam locomotives and, later on, a steel mesh factory. It is the new home to multiple cultural facilities: a cinema, an event space, the city music and ballet school, a large foyer with bar, as well as the city theatre, which had previously operated in an historic building in the inner city, bursting at the seams.