Office building (Leipzig)

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The former office building in 1890

The Amtshaus (also Altes Amtshaus ) in Leipzig was a building for the seat of the Leipzig Office , the administrative authority of the Electoral-Saxon State for the Leipzig district , after the territorially extensive Leipzig Office had established itself as a permanent local administrative authority in the 14th century.

history

The floor plan of the house in 1778
The office building on an engraving from 1749
Post office at the Thomaskirchhof in front of the office building known as the Alte Post - drawing by Adolf Eltzner , around 1850
The old reformed church in the office building after the renovation in 1841
The restored Art Nouveau building of Commerzbank (2009) on the site of the former office building

By the secularization of the Canons Regular of St. Thomas in the wake of the Reformation, the site fell to the St. Thomas Church to the Saxon court, from which it acquired the city of Leipzig and tore down the monastery buildings 1,543th The Leipzig merchant Heinrich Scherl (1475–1548) acquired the corner property Thomaskirchhof / Klostergasse from the building site and erected a four-story building. It was bought by the Elector August from the descendants of Scherl, who got into debt, in 1582 and combined it with the neighboring property acquired in 1559 to form the electoral office.

The building now comprised 18 window axes to Klostergasse and 18 to the Thomaskirchhof (see floor plan). The house was always the property of the Saxon Grand Chancellor as the highest state official. It was thus extra-territorial area within the city ​​walls . The state administrative tasks concerned the collection of sovereign taxes and compulsory labor , police and judiciary .

In August Schumann (1773-1826) Staatslexikon of Saxony from 1828 is cited for the Leipzig authority the following Arrangement: "A District Chief , two circular and Marschkommissarien, two official captains, a county magistrate, an official Rent Administrator, [which is why the house sometimes Rentnerei was named] an actuary, a viceactuar, a collector, a district judge and a control officer. The office still includes nine official district officers, two official officers, an official physician, three official mill and hydraulic engineering jury, a road construction commissioner, a hydraulic engineering commissioner and an official taxator ” . 19 tax officials are also listed.

The office building did not always house the state authorities. From 1712 to 1839 the Saxon or Royal Saxon post office was also housed here.

Since 1700, a small community of the Reformed Church had formed in Leipzig, in particular through religious refugees ( Huguenots ) from France . After a payment of 7,000 thalers to the Grand Chancellor in 1707, they were given the right to use some of the offices in the office free of charge . On the plan from 1778, a hall-like building for the Reformed Church can be seen in the rear part of the property. In 1766/67 Johann Emanuel Schweinfleisch (1720–1771) installed an organ here . Since Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (1809–1847) was a member of the Reformed church, the organ is also known as the pork Mendelssohn organ .

On February 6, 1764, the drawing academy was founded in Leipzig , which is subordinate to the art academy in Dresden and whose first director was Adam Friedrich Oeser (1717–1799). This was also housed in the office building before moving to the west wing of the Pleißenburg in the summer of 1765 .

In 1749 the office building burned down in part, and the post and office archives were also lost. In 1838 the new post office building was completed on Augustusplatz according to a design by Albert Geutebrück (1801–1868) , so that the post office left the office building. Most of the district authorities moved with them into the new building, because a city guide from 1860 states: "The office of the district directorate is on the first floor of the post office building" . Then it is not surprising that the Reformed Congregation was able to purchase the office building in 1839. From then on, the name Altes Amtshaus, in the sense of the former administrative building, is likely to have developed. The prayer room was redesigned in 1841 to a church with a classical sermon room .

After that, the office building was apparently reduced in size, because in 1858 the Ratsfreischule moved into a building adjacent to the office building at the Thomaskirchhof, and the images of the office building only show eight window axes to the Thomaskirchhof. In 1874, an association of Leipzig citizens, the "Society of Friends of the Museum of Applied Arts in Leipzig" with Fritz von Harck (1855–1917), among others , opened the Museum of Applied Arts in the Amtshaus , which in 1895 moved to the Alte Grassimuseum on Königsplatz with the greatly increased collection .

The office building was demolished around 1900 and the Franz Ebert department store was built in the Art Nouveau style by the Leipzig architects Schmidt & Johlige from 1903–1905, with the building line being removed to gain traffic space . In 1949 it was taken over by Konsum Leipzig as a department store progress (later fashion house Topas ) , now it houses the Commerzbank . The Reformed Congregation moved into the newly built Reformed Church on Tröndlinring in 1899 . The organ was moved to the Church of the Resurrection in Leipzig-Möckern and is today the oldest preserved organ in the city of Leipzig.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Dirk Scheidemantel: Leipzig, Thomaskirchhof. Clergy, citizens and officials. State Office for Archeology Dresden 2012, ISBN 978-3-943770-02-5 .
  2. ^ Horst Riedel: City Lexicon Leipzig. P. 15.
  3. ↑ a b August Schumann: State Lexicon of Saxony. Volume 5, p. 558.
  4. ↑ Press release of the Leipzig regional council of January 21, 2002: Association for the promotion of the oldest Leipzig organ is founded. ( Memento of November 9, 2005 in the Internet Archive ).
  5. ^ Carl Weidinger: Leipzig. A guide to the city and its surroundings. (Weber's illustrated travel library), Weber, Leipzig 1860 (Reprint: Tourist Verlag, Berlin, Leipzig 1989, ISBN 3-350-00310-9 , p. 186).

literature

Web links

Commons : Amtshaus  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 51 ° 20 ′ 23.4 "  N , 12 ° 22 ′ 22.7"  E