Old Town Hall (Leipzig)

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Old Town Hall (front, view from the market), 2019

The old town hall in Leipzig - the east side of the market the fair city dominant - is considered one of Germany's most important secular buildings of the Renaissance . The Naschmarkt is at the rear . The mayor and city administration have been housed in the New Town Hall since 1905 .

history

In 1341, Margrave Friedrich II of Meißen transferred a representative building south of the market, which was probably built in the Romanesque style at the end of the 13th century, to the Leipzig cloth makers . In terms of location and area, this building roughly corresponds to today's council chamber of the Old Town Hall. It can be assumed that the city council already performed its duties here. A Leipzig town hall was first mentioned in documents in 1360. Due to the growth of Leipzig and the resulting additional tasks of the city council, there were extensions on the north side of the cloth house. The two new buildings, which initially extend to today's passage, were built on the foundations of previous buildings, which explains the "kink" in the longitudinal facade of the town hall of around three degrees between the first and second gable from the right.

In the middle of the 15th century there was a merger with two other buildings north of today's passage. In December 1467 a new council chamber was completed. The overbuilding of the passage through a stair tower and thus the final merging of the individual buildings is not exactly verifiable. A stair tower was mentioned for the first time in 1476. In 1482 the cloth makers moved into their own building. A year later, a secret chamber was created, which is a kind of mezzanine and can now be visited as the aerar (treasure chamber). In 1498, as trade was booming at that time, it was decided to renovate the town hall, which became financially impossible.

  • Oldest view of the Old Town Hall from 1547

  • Old Town Hall, 1672

  • The Leipzig market square with the old town hall, 1712

There were fundamental structural changes until the middle of the 16th century, for example the town hall was widened by about four meters in the direction of the Naschmarkt, accompanied by an increase in the size of the roof. The town hall was rebuilt in 1556/57 by the ruling mayor and wholesale merchant Hieronymus Lotter and was largely given its current appearance in the style of the Saxon Renaissance . The first head master was Paul Speck , who was probably responsible for the design. After his death in early 1557 he was followed by master Paul Widemann . The town's master mason, Sittich Pfretzschner , was also involved .

In addition to the headquarters of the councilors the Old City Hall housed temporarily the well since the late 16th century Oberhof - and jury court , the magistrates , the council archive and housed in the basement prison cells. The ballroom with a length of about 40 meters was for a long time the largest event location in the city and was accordingly also used for public receptions and festivities.

Hans Krell's paintings with illustrations of Saxon princes, which can be found in the ballroom and council chamber since 1553, have been continuously added.

Painting of the council chamber from 1858

An extension of the building was discussed as early as the 18th century. In the end, only the tower was raised by 2.80 meters by the master builder Christian Döring . At the end of the 19th century, the town hall turned out to be too small for the rapidly growing city. Decades of discussions followed about demolishing and building a new one at the same location or even selling the property for the purpose of building commercial buildings. The New Town Hall was built in 1899 instead of the Pleißenburg. The preservation of the old town hall was decided in 1905 in the event of a tie by the vote of the chairman of the city council, Johannes Junck . After extensive renovation, it should serve as a city ​​history museum .

Astronomical clock on the west side of the tower after the restoration in 2018

The restoration and conversion work for the new use as a museum took place from 1906 to 1909, today's exterior is predominantly a replica of these conversions. This resulted in the ground floor u. a. instead of the wooden arbours an arcade made of Rochlitz porphyry . Since then, there have been two fountains called “Badender Knabe” and “Badendes Mädchen” in a niche inside and in front of the passage to the Naschmarkt side .

During the Second World War , the building was severely damaged in the heavy air raid on Leipzig on December 4, 1943 , and the roof structure burned out completely. The iron-supported concrete ceiling drawn in during the renovation work at the beginning of the 20th century prevented the flames from spreading from the roof structure to the historic rooms on the first floor. Most of the museum property had already been outsourced and was preserved. The restoration as one of the first public buildings in Leipzig took place from 1946 to 1950. After minor exhibitions from 1945, the City History Museum and thus the Old Town Hall reopened in 1952.

1988 to 1990 the building was closed for a long time for the last time due to extensive renovation work and alterations. From the beginning of 2017 to 2018, the facade, including the dials of the three clocks, was extensively renovated.

Worth seeing inside the building are the large ballroom, the council chamber, the late baroque landscape room, the treasury and the only authentic portrait of Johann Sebastian Bach (by Elias Gottlob Haussmann ), who signed his certificate of employment as Thomaskantor in the council chamber in 1723 .

Circumferential inscription

This text can be read around the town hall below the top floor:

“AFTER CHRIST OUR LORD'S BIRTH IN MDLVI YEAR BEY GOVERNMENT OF THE MOST SEAMLESS AND HIGH-BORN FURST AND MR. AUGUSTI HERTZOGEN TO SAXONY OF THE H. ROME REICH ERTZMARSCHALL AND CHURFÜRSTEN LANDGRAFF, MEGGRAFFEN, TOURS, MEGGRAFFEN, ZOURGRAFFEN, TOURS, Germany. CONSTRUCTION OF THIS HOUSE IN THE MONTH OF MARTIO HAS STARTED IN THE CITY OF TRANSPORT COMMUNITY BENEFITS AND COMPLETED THE SAME AT THE END IN NOVEMBRIS. HONOR TO THE LORD SEY ALONE, BECAUSE THE LORD DOES NOT BUILD THE CITY SO WORK FOR FREE THE BUILD ON WHERE THE LORD DOES NOT WATCH THE CITY SO THE GUARD WILL KEEP LORD SEY ONLY GIVENEDEYET FOREVER AMEN BEY CHURF. IOH. GEORG II. HOCHLÖBL. GOVERNMENT RENOV. MDCLXXII. "

The old town hall and the golden ratio

Old Town Hall (after reconstruction 1906–1909), 1909

What is remarkable is the asymmetrical structure of the building from the front and back, which almost divides it in the golden section . During the renovations under Hieronymus Lotter in 1556/57, the facade was largely given its current dimensions through the existing buildings and their foundations. It is often assumed that the tower of the Old Town Hall, offset to the left, marks the proportions of the golden section on the building. The actual division of the front of the housing towards the market in terms of the golden ratio, however, takes place in the middle of the main portal and passage - lying asymmetrically to the tower. The overall aesthetic impression of the building is not influenced by this fact in connection with the height of the tower.

Dimensions (since 1909)

  • Total length (market side): approx. 93.2 meters
  • Lengths of the building parts to the left and right of the passage (starting in the middle of the passage, market side): approx. 35.8 meters on the left, approx. 57.4 meters on the right
  • Width: approx.20.6 meters
  • Height of the town hall tower: approx. 41 meters
  • Length of the inscription: approx. 220 meters

literature

  • Cornelius Gurlitt : town hall. In:  Descriptive representation of the older architectural and art monuments of the Kingdom of Saxony. 18th issue: City of Leipzig (Part II) . CC Meinhold, Dresden 1896, p. 308.
  • The renovation of the old town hall in Leipzig. In: Der Profanbau , year 1910, issue 1 (January 1, 1910), pp. 1–14.
  • Doris Mundus: The old town hall in Leipzig. Lehmstedt, Leipzig 2003, ISBN 3-937146-01-6 .
  • Volker Rodekamp (ed.): The old town hall in Leipzig. DZA, Altenburg 2004, ISBN 3-936300-11-9 .
  • Volker Rodekamp (Ed.): Leipzig original. City history from the Middle Ages to the Battle of Nations. Catalog for the permanent exhibition of the City History Museum in the Old Town Hall, Part I. DZA, Altenburg 2006, ISBN 978-3-936300-24-6 .
  • Markus Cottin, Doris Mundus (ed.): 450 years old town hall in Leipzig. Sax, Markkleeberg 2010, ISBN 978-3-86729-055-5 .
  • Alberto Schwarz: Das Alte Leipzig - Stadtbild und Architektur , Beucha 2018, ISBN 978-3-86729-226-9 .

Web links

Commons : Altes Rathaus  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Article "Old Town Hall" in Leipzig Lexicon
  2. ↑ Marko Kuhn: The genesis of a coincidence. The old town hall Leipzig . In: Lieselotte Kugler, Oliver Götze (ed.): Divine - Golden - Genial. The golden ratio as a global formula? Hirmer, Munich 2016, ISBN 978-3-7774-2689-1 , pp. 186-191 .

Coordinates: 51 ° 20 ′ 25.1 ″  N , 12 ° 22 ′ 31.4 ″  E