Augustusplatz

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Augustusplatz
Coat of arms of Leipzig, svg
Place in Leipzig
Augustusplatz
West side v. l. Right: City high-rise , Neues Augusteum , Paulinum and University
Church , Kroch high-rise (2019)
Basic data
place Leipzig
District Center-east
Created 18th century
Newly designed 1960s to 2000s
Hist. Names Grimmaischer Thorplatz, Karl-Marx-Platz (1945–1990)
Confluent streets Georgiring ,
Grimmaischer Steinweg , Grimmaische Strasse, Goethestrasse
Buildings City high-rise , Neues Augusteum / Paulinum , Kroch high-rise , opera house , main post office , Europahaus , Neues Gewandhaus
use
User groups Car traffic , public transport , foot traffic
Technical specifications
Square area approx. 40,000 m²

The Augustusplatz in Leipzig is located on the eastern inner city ring and with 40,000 m² is one of the largest city ​​squares in Germany. It has been named after Friedrich August I (1750-1827), the first ruler of the Kingdom of Saxony , since 1837 , and was named Karl-Marx- Platz from August 1945 until German reunification in early October 1990 . During the fall of the Wall in 1989, the square was the central meeting place for the Monday demonstrations .

description

Buildings from various architectural eras are located around the important junction of the Leipzig tram network . The oldest attraction on the square is the Mende Fountain , inaugurated in 1886, in front of the New Gewandhaus . The striking city ​​skyscraper from 1972 on the southwest corner behind the MDR cube built in 2001 is the tallest skyscraper in Leipzig . Adjacent to this are two university buildings on the west side , the New Augusteum and the Paulinum - auditorium and St. Pauli University Church , which were completed in 2012 and at the end of 2017 respectively. Beyond the Grimmaische Strasse, which leads to the market, stands the city's first high-rise . The Krochhochhaus, dating from the Weimar Republic , with the theater passage and the University's Egyptian Museum is 43 meters high. The clock tower ( Torre dell'Orologio ) on St. Mark's Square in Venice served as a model for the bell striking mechanism on the roof with the two 3.30 meter tall bell men .

The north side is dominated by the neoclassical style opera house , which was inaugurated in 1960. On the east side are the former main post office from 1964 and the Radisson Blu Hotel , the structure of which also dates from the 1960s. The adjoining Europahaus (56 m high) was built shortly after the Krochhochhaus as an urban counterweight at the end of the 1920s on the opposite side of the square. On the southern edge is the New Gewandhaus , which opened in 1981 and is home to the Gewandhaus Orchestra .

With the New Post Building (1838), the Museum of Fine Arts (“Bildermuseum”, 1858) and the New Theater (1868), representative buildings stood on Augustusplatz until they were destroyed by the air raids on Leipzig in World War II Augusteum damaged in the war and the undamaged university church made into one of the most beautiful German squares. The remains of this historical ensemble of buildings were finally lost during the GDR era when the Augusteum and University Church were blown up in 1968 at the instigation of the university and following a resolution by the SED- led city administration.

General

View from the House of Europe across the square to the Opera House on the northern side. On the left edge of the picture the Mende Fountain in front of the New Gewandhaus (2007)

Including the parallel lanes and sidewalks, Augustusplatz is approx. 185 meters wide. The distance in north-south direction (between the opera house and the Gewandhaus) is approx. 215 meters, which results in an area of ​​almost 4  hectares . The house numbers are counted on the east side with the former main post office ("Lebendiges Haus", Augustusplatz 1–4) and continue in horseshoe numbering via the Radisson Blu Hotel (No. 5–6), the Europahaus (No. 7, seat of the municipal utilities) Leipzig ) and the Neue Gewandhaus (No. 8) to the buildings on the southwest corner of the square. The house numbers on the western side of the square are assigned to Goethe Strasse north of Grimmaische Strasse , which leads to the main station . The Georgi ring begins in the northeast at the level of the opera house (Augustusplatz No. 12) . In the south-east is the Roßplatz with its characteristic ring development .

Several lines of the Leipzig tram network cross the square, under which there is an underground car park managed by Q-Park (Augustusplatz No. 15).

history

City fortifications of Leipzig during the Thirty Years War , in the lower half of the picture on the right the Grimma Gate and the Grimma Suburb (1632)

For centuries, the area of ​​the later Augustusplatz lay outside the city ​​wall and moat between the old town and the Grimmaischer Vorstadt . The Via Regia trading route , which was paved with stone paving in the late Middle Ages as the Grimmaischer Steinweg , ran over it since the Middle Ages . Otherwise the square was undeveloped so that there was a clear field of fire to defend the old town in times of war.

After the Hubertusburg Peace of 1763, the Saxon Elector made the defenses available to the city on the condition that after their gradual demolition, the space would be used for charitable purposes. In 1784, Mayor Carl Wilhelm Müller commissioned the city's building director, Johann Carl Friedrich Dauthe , to design a park around the northeastern part of the city up to the Grimma Gate .

Square in front of the Grimma Gate (1804)

At the site of the abandoned city ​​fortifications in front of the Grimmaischer Tor, Dauthe built two round lawns , which in turn were bordered by a circle of poplars. This promenade was named Platz in front of the Grimmaic Gate . Between the roundabouts the connection led from the Grimmaischer Tor to the Grimmaischer Steinweg , which at the (old) Johannisfriedhof split into the streets to Grimma and Dresden via Wurzen. At the beginning of the Grimmaischen Steinweg, on its south side and now on the east side of the new square, the post stable, also known as the post horn, stood with the horses for the post coach operation since the beginning of the 18th century.

View from Schneckenberg to the north to the Georgenhaus (before 1864)

Dauthe had the material from the defensive fortifications removed to form a 25-meter-high hill on the north side of the square, which was called the Schneckenberg because of the spiraling ascent paths . It also served as the end of the English-style park behind it at today's swan pond . It was very well received by the people of Leipzig and served as a lookout point and toboggan hill. Theodor Körner designed his poem " Lützow's wild hunt " on April 24, 1813 on the Schneckenberg . From 1864 the Schneckenberg was demolished for the construction of the New Theater .

Around 1840 the square had become an important trade fair location for retail trade for the trades of basket makers, glass and tin goods dealers, shoemakers and peppercorns. The roundabouts created by Dauthe at the Torplatz also served to limit traffic jams during the trade fair.

Teubner's house, Augustusplatz 2 (before 1880)

On the eastern edge of what will later become Augustusplatz, Benedictus Gotthelf Teubner erected a first representative new building on the site of the former post office in 1821 . BG Teubner later wrote, "that I have created a real ornament for the city, especially in this vacant space, and thereby broken a new path for the production of beautiful buildings". The trading house F. Flinsch , which was founded in 1819 and was active in the paper wholesale business, also settled there.

The baroque Weinnäpfchen house had stood on the south side of the square since the late 1790s . In connection with the construction of the “Bildermuseum”, which bordered the Weinnäpfchen property, and the construction of the Ringstrasse , the city of Leipzig bought the property in 1858, parceled it out and had the house demolished.

In 1837 the city administration decided to rename it to Augustusplatz . From August 1, 1945, it was Karl-Marx-Platz and on October 3, 1990, the day of German Unity , it was given its old name back.

During the Nazi era , the square was used as a parade forum and location for National Socialist propaganda exhibitions. In 1940 the two exhibitions "The Wehrmacht shows documents from the Polish campaign " and " Victory in the West " were shown there. From 1944 onwards, large mountains of rubble from the inner city were piled up on Augustusplatz, which were transported away with the central railway of the Leipzig rubble railway .

In the 1950s, the rallies and demonstrations on May 1st took place on what is now Karl-Marx-Platz, before the grandstand was relocated to the Georgiring.

Development

South side (New Gewandhaus)

The new (third) Gewandhaus was built from 1977 to 1981 on the area of ​​the " Bildermuseum " destroyed in the war (2011)

The Museum of Fine Arts, designed by Ludwig Lange in the style of the Italian Renaissance , opened at the end of 1858 . Before the 1886 inaugurated was an ornament Mendebrunnen erected. The foundation stone for today's New Gewandhaus was laid in 1977 on the site of the building that was destroyed in the war . The Gewandhaus Orchestra , which found a home in the Congress Hall after the destruction of the New Concerthaus , made its debut there on October 7, 1981 under the direction of Kurt Masur with a concert for those involved in the construction.

West side (Augustusplatz / Goethestrasse)

Relief "Aufbruch" on the main building of the Karl Marx University Leipzig (1975)

Next to the New Augusteum , the main university building, is the Paulinum complex - auditorium and St. Pauli University Church . The University Church of St. Pauli ( Paulinerkirche ), which was consecrated in 1240 and remained intact during the war, was blown up on May 30, 1968 together with the rebuildable old Augusteum (built 1831-1836). The neighboring Johanneum and Albertinum buildings followed three weeks later to make room for the new buildings of the socialist Karl Marx University, on whose main building the bronze relief Aufbruch with Karl Marx in the center could be seen from 1973 to 2006 .

The Grimma Gate was demolished in 1831. In the same year, the Leipzig confectioner Wilhelm Felsche had his Café français (from 1914 Café Felsche ) built next to the Paulinerkirche at the southern confluence of Grimmaische Strasse . The top class coffee house was destroyed in 1943. In today's building Augustusplatz 11 is currently (2020) u. a. a branch of the system restaurateur Vapiano .

On the former site of the Great College to the north of it, two commercial buildings from the Belle Époque era have been preserved on either side of the Krochhochhaus . On the property at Goethestrasse 3–5, where the Gasthaus Zur Melone , the Neue Schenkenhaus and the Meißner Burse stood, the architect Martin Dülfer built a four-storey commercial building in the historicism style on behalf of the Dresdner Bank (now Commerzbank ) in 1910/11 . From the beginning of the 1950s it was the location of the university bookstore Franz-Mehring -Haus , which is why the building in Leipzig is generally known as the “Mehringhaus”. The shop, which at the time was the largest bookstore in the GDR with an area of ​​2000 square meters, was closed at the beginning of 2009. Today there is a Commerzbank branch on the ground floor next to a shop of the Wellensteyn textile chain .

West side with Königsbau , Krochhochhaus and Mehring house . The glass cylinder in the right foreground is illuminated at night and one of the eight stair entrances to the underground car park. (2005)

In the Königsbau at the confluence with Grimmaische Strasse (Goethestrasse 1), the “specialty store for men's, boys' and sportswear” of the textile retailer Bamberger & Hertz was opened on October 18, 1911 . Its name comes from the builder Königsbau AG , which was owned by the Jewish Bamberger family. The building designed by the Leipzig architects Schmidt & Johlige was only completely ready for occupancy in April 1913 and also housed the Café Corso founded by the master confectioner Otto Kuttert . The part of the ground floor facing Grimmaische Strasse was occupied by Blumen-Hanisch , whose store had been in the previous building since 1885. The textile trading company led by Gustav and Ludwig Bamberger developed into one of the leading men's outfitters in the upper price range in the German Empire. The Königsbau, which was set on fire during the Reichspogromnacht in 1938, was rebuilt in a functional manner by 1949 and finally returned to the Bamberg heirs in 1991. In the meantime in the property of the building contractor Jürgen Schneider , it belongs to the insurance company Alte Leipziger - Hallesche today . The building, which was completely renovated from 1998 to 2000, houses the largest branch of the Targo Bank in the new federal states .

On the property in between (Goethestrasse 2), the university built a residential and commercial building in 1872, which was designed as a through-house in order to have a quick and easy way from the city center to the New Theater on the north side of the square, which had opened four years earlier . A corridor vaulted by a glass roof with shops on both sides led to the house at Ritterstraße 4 at the Nikolaikirchhof . This gave Leipzig its first passage , for which the name Theaterpassage was established from around 1880 . Hans Engler from Leipzig is assumed to be the architect. The more than 50-year-old house was demolished in the mid-1920s and Leipzig's first high-rise, the Krochhochhaus, was built there in 1927/28 . As an urban counterweight, the Europahaus was built shortly afterwards on the eastern side of the square .

North side (opera house)

Opera House (2010). In the background on the right the winter garden tower

At the beginning of 1868, the New Theater created by Carl Ferdinand Langhans opened with Goethe's Iphigenie on Tauris . After the ruins of the building, which had been destroyed by bombs, were removed, the opera house was built there and inaugurated in 1960 with the Mastersingers of Nuremberg . To the north of it is the Obere Park with the swan pond .

The model of the Leipzig Bismarck Monument stood in front of the theater from 1895 to 1897 . From 1953 to 1955, a bronze cast of the Berlin Stalin memorial adorned Karl-Marx-Platz around its place. The memorial, which was shown for the first time in 1952 at the Leipzig festival for Stalin's 73rd birthday, was erected immediately after Stalin's death in March 1953 on a paneled wooden structure and in front of a mighty wall that covered the theater ruins. Because it stood in the way of the new opera house and the base had become dilapidated, it was dismantled and stored in 1955. The planned transfer to Leipzig's Stalinallee did not take place. It disappeared without a trace.

East side (Augustusplatz / Georgiring)

Main post from 1964 after reconstruction (2019)

On the northern corner of the Grimmaischen Steinweg , where the inn “Zum Weisse Schwan” was still located in 1835, the 87 meter long classicist “ New Post Office ” was built from 1836 to 1838 according to a design by Albert Geutebrück 1 also housed the Leipziger Oberpostdirektion until 1926 . After the destruction in the war, the main post office planned by Kurt Nowotny was built there for Deutsche Post from 1961 to 1964 . From the summer of 2011, the reinforced concrete building stood empty until its listed reconstruction began in 2016 . At the end of 2018, an Edeka supermarket and the Motel One Leipzig-Post with 300 rooms opened in the southern wing of the building on Grimmaischer Steinweg .

Papierhandlung Flinsch (left) and Bankhaus Becker (around 1892)

The Flinsch paper shop, which expanded rapidly at the beginning of high industrialization , had the almost 60-year-old Teubner building demolished and a residential and commercial building built in 1880 based on a design by Otto Laux. Between the “Flinsch-Haus” and Johannisgasse, the new administration building for the Becker & Co. bank was built from 1884 to 1887 according to plans by Bruno Grimm . The long-established institute was founded in Leipzig in 1798 by Carl Gotthilf Becker, after it was converted into a partnership limited by shares (KGaA) affiliated to the Berliner Disconto-Gesellschaft in 1898 and merged with the Leipziger Allgemeine Deutsche Credit-Anstalt (ADCA) in 1901 .

1965: The hotel "Deutschland" traded as " Interhotel am Ring" from 1973 and is now part of the Radisson Blu chain

On the opposite (southern) side of Johannisgasse (Augustusplatz 8 / Johannisgasse 2), Hendrik Petrus Berlage built the " Dutch House " between 1901 and 1903 as the new company headquarters for the Dutch Life Insurance Company for Germany . The ruins of the three commercial buildings destroyed in the war were torn down and Johannisgasse was led to Goldschmidtstraße to the south, so that a coherent area was created up to Grimmaischer Steinweg, on which the Hotel "Deutschland" , designed by Wolfgang Scheibe and Helmut Ullmann , was built between 1963 and 1965 . Its name changed several times: in 1973 it was the Interhotel am Ring , from 1990 it was again Hotel Deutschland , and in 1992 it became the Hotel Mercure . After gutting and renovation, it is now a Radisson Blu Hotel .

The Europahaus was built directly next to the Dutch house on Roßplatz from 1928 to 1930 . The reinforced concrete - skeleton with limestone cladding consists of a 56 meter high tower with 13 floors, which is provided on both sides with seven storey side wings. In the 1930s there was a roof garden restaurant on the central part . During the GDR era, the house was the seat of the district administration of the GDR State Insurance . After renovation and modernization work, Stadtwerke Leipzig with around 160 employees moved into the Europahaus in 2014 .

Recent development

MDR cube (wide-angle panorama) with connection to the Gewandhaus (left), photo: 2011

The underground car park encompassing the entire area was built between 1996 and 1998. It required constructions on the square u. a. for stairs and ventilation that are controversial among the population. In particular, the opaque glass cylinders installed on the eight staircases , which are used to illuminate the square at night , were quickly ridiculed as "milk pots".

The MDR cube with rehearsal and sound recording rooms for the MDR ensemble, built in 2001 next to the New Gewandhaus, was designed by the Dresden architect Peter Kulka .

The new building of the university complex, about which a fierce dispute broke out between 2002 and 2004 with regard to a possible reconstruction of the university church, is intended to give the square new accents. The redesign of the university complex should be completed by the 600th anniversary of Leipzig University in 2009, but this goal could not be achieved. The main part facing Augustusplatz was redesigned according to plans by the architect Erick van Egeraat and, with its gable construction and the interior hall, is stylistically reminiscent of the university church, which was destroyed in 1968.

The New Augusteum was completed in 2012. The opening of the Paulinum, also planned for 2009, was delayed until the beginning of December 2017. In the meantime, disputes about the future use of the new building on the site of the Pauline Church led to work being blocked; later there were complications with the completion of the glass columns for the interior of the building.

The Democracy Bell (2010)

On October 9, 2009, a monument by the artist Via Lewandowsky , the Democracy Bell, was unveiled opposite the confluence with Grimmaische Strasse . It is reminiscent of the Monday demonstration on October 9, 1989. The bell rings every Monday at 6:35 pm, around the time the demonstration began, also on October 9 at 10:30 am and every day between 8:00 am and 8:00 pm 8 p.m. within every full hour at random with one to twelve beats. The bell is made of bronze and has the shape of an egg about one meter high.

A temporary beach volleyball court is now being set up on Augustusplatz every year . In addition to the SachsenBeach everyone's tournament, which has been held since 2009, the Techniker Beach Tour was also held there , one week after SachsenBeach in 2018 .

literature

  • Gina Klank, Gernoth Griebsch: Lexicon of Leipzig street names . Ed .: City Archives Leipzig. 1st edition. Verlag im Wissenschaftszentrum Leipzig, Leipzig 1995, ISBN 3-930433-09-5 , p. 30 .
  • Horst Riedel (Red .: Thomas Nabert ): Stadtlexikon Leipzig from A to Z. PRO LEIPZIG, Leipzig 2012, ISBN 978-3-936508-82-6 , p. 29 f.
  • Thomas Topfstedt , Pit Lehmann (Ed.): The Leipzig Augustusplatz. Functions and shape change of a big city square. Leipziger Universitätsverlag, Leipzig 1994, ISBN 3-929031-28-0 .
  • Alberto Schwarz: Das Alte Leipzig - Stadtbild und Architektur , Beucha 2018, ISBN 978-3-86729-226-9 .

See also

Web links

Commons : Augustusplatz  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Horst Riedel, Thomas Nabert (ed.): Stadtlexikon Leipzig from A to Z . 1st edition. Pro Leipzig, Leipzig 2005, ISBN 3-936508-03-8 , pp. 480 .
  2. ↑ a b Horst Riedel: Augustusplatz . In: PRO LEIPZIG (ed.): Stadtlexikon Leipzig from A to Z . 2nd Edition. Leipzig 2012, p. 29 .
  3. ↑ Horst Riedel, 2012, p. 29
  4. ↑ Jürgen Weiß: BG Teubner on the 225th birthday. Adam Ries - Battle of the Nations - FA Brockhaus - Augustusplatz - Leipziger Zeitung - Börsenblatt. Edition at Gutenbergplatz Leipzig, 2009
  5. ↑ Gina Klank, Gernot Griebsch: Lexikon Leipziger Straßenennamen , Verlag im Wissenschaftszentrum Leipzig, 1995, ISBN 3-930433-09-5 , p. 30
  6. ↑ leipzig-dasdorf.de: Franz-Mehring-house
  7. ↑ altes-leipzig.net: Franz-Mehring-Haus, University Bookstore at Karl-Marx-Platz display 1952
  8. ↑ boersenblatt.net: End of a legend
  9. ↑ Gerhard Nenke: commercial buildings on Augustusplatz . In: Thomas Topfstedt, Pit Lehmann: The Augustusplatz; Functions and shape change of a big city square. Leipziger Universitätsverlag 1994, ISBN 3-929031-28-0 , p. 67
  10. ↑ Andrea Lorz: Seek the city for the best: life pictures of Jewish entrepreneurs from Leipzig. ProLeipzig 1996, ISBN 978-3000005978 , p. 52
  11. ↑ "Schneider Objects" in Leipzig City. Retrieved August 30, 2010 .
  12. ^ Hocquél: Die Leipziger Passagen & Höfe , p. 139
  13. ^ Museum asks for help: Fate of Leipzig monuments. Publication of the Leipzig City History Museum with information on the Leipzig Stalin Monument on the occasion of the leading European trade fair for monument preservation, restoration and renovation of old buildings from November 8 to 10, 2018 in Leipzig .
  14. ↑ New opening - Motel One in a listed post office building. In: tophotel.de. December 19, 2018, accessed August 30, 2019 .
  15. ↑ Horst Riedel (Red .: Thomas Nabert ): Stadtlexikon Leipzig from A to Z. PRO LEIPZIG, Leipzig 2012, ISBN 978-3-936508-82-6 , p. 139
  16. ↑ Stadtwerke move into the Europahaus. In: stadtbau.com. Leipziger Stadtbau Aktiengesellschaft, October 24, 2013, accessed on April 11, 2019 .
  17. ↑ Leipziger Internet Zeitung: Three years of delay: The new Augusteum at the University of Leipzig is now going into operation in stages , April 4, 2012, accessed on May 2, 2012
  18. ^ Inauguration of the Paulinum / University Church . (No longer available online.) December 2, 2017, archived from the original on December 4, 2017 ; Retrieved December 3, 2017 .
  19. ↑ Dankwart Guratzsch: Church Architecture: A House of God? Oh God! Hide it! , welt.de, December 2, 2011, accessed January 1, 2012
  20. ↑ Paulinum - no inauguration in 2016 either. February 10, 2016, accessed December 3, 2017 .
  21. ↑ http://kulturstiftung-leipzig.de/projekte/archiv/
  22. ↑ Alexander Bley: For the 10th edition of the SachsenBeach: German beach volleyball tour stops in front of the Leipzig Opera. In: Leipziger Volkszeitung . February 8, 2018, accessed July 30, 2019 .

Coordinates: 51 ° 20 ′ 21 ″  N , 12 ° 22 ′ 51 ″  E