Bowling club (Leipzig)

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Entrance structure of the bowling club (2016)

The bowling club in Leipzig was a sports and leisure facility. It was built in 1987 in a former electrical forming plant under the northern part of Wilhelm-Leuschner-Platz and was in operation until 1997. The system including the above-ground new intake building in the style of postmodernism stands as testimony of the late East German architecture under monument protection .

history

In the years 1925/1926 , the underground electrical forming plant in the middle was built on Roßplatz , south along the promenade ring . It served the stable direct current supply of the city center including the tram, whereby incoming voltage fluctuations were compensated by a large number of accumulators . In addition to the larger machine room, there was therefore the smaller battery room. The facility was used until 1965.

As early as the mid-1970s, plans were drawn up to use the disused facility for a leisure center. After its failure, a new order was placed in 1984 for a bowling center, during which an internal competition was held in January 1985. Winfried Sziegoleit (* 1939), whose design was also realized, won this award . The project planning was carried out by a collective headed by Volker Sieg (* 1937). Construction work began in June 1986, with Leipzig citizens volunteering 40,000 hours of unpaid work. After a construction period of only thirteen months, the bowling club was opened on July 25, 1987, on time for the 8th Gymnastics and Sports Festival of the GDR . Since the construction of the bowling club was not accounted for in any of the city's overarching plans and there was also no government approval, it is sometimes referred to as the city's "black building".

  • Construction pit of the forming plant (1925)

  • Access to the forming plant
    (around 1930)

  • Machine hall
    (around 1930)

  • Bowling club at the opening (1987)

The bowling club was well received. With a daily opening time of 15 hours, an average of 2000 to 2500 guests were counted. In 1997 the bowling club was closed for complex reasons. Only in 2007 did the slowly decaying building come to life again for a week. The HTWK organized its annual architecture exhibition on the occasion of its 15th anniversary under the motto Bowling together! . In 2009, at the suggestion of the Board of Trustees of the Leipzig Cultural Foundation, a concept for the conversion of the bowling club into a cultural center was developed, which was not realized because the city was considering housing a communal facility. In 2014 the first idea arose to consider the listed building as a new location for the Natural History Museum , which was rejected in the same year due to the high costs and a tender for sale was launched instead. The natural history museum was to be housed in Hall 7 of the former cotton spinning mill in Lindenau, but this was canceled in 2018. Instead, according to the latest status (July 2020) - provided that the city council's approval is still pending - the natural history museum is to be set up in the former bowling club.

description

The entrance building of the bowling club has a slightly elongated octagon with a side length of about ten meters. This is supposed to be a certain reminiscence of the likewise polygonal exhibition and later amusement center Panorama , which stood to the east of it until 1943 , which was about twice as large and had sixteen sides. The concrete side surfaces, interrupted by window elements, are clad with Cotta sandstone like the Gewandhaus . The central area is vaulted with a glass roof and is reminiscent of the Leipzig tradition of the passages. There is a fountain bowl in the square in front of the entrance.

  • Entrance hall from the mezzanine level (2007)

  • Remnants of the bowling lanes in the machine hall (2007)

A few steps lead to the lower entrance. (There was also access for the handicapped.) A straight staircase flanked by reinforced concrete columns leads over a mezzanine level into the lower reception hall, from which the two bowling halls branch off to the side. The bowling halls have skylight windows that are also visible from the outside in the area. A winding staircase connects the mezzanine level with the rear part of the ground floor.

The bowling club had eight and six bowling lanes in its two halls. On the balcony level in the great hall there were six pool tables and poly-play slot machines . There was a fitness room, a conference room, a Skatklause and office space. In addition to a café in the entrance building, there were other catering spaces in the basement, seating a total of 310 guests.

literature

Web links

Commons : Bowling Club  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ List of technical monuments in Leipzig , ID no. 09300365
  2. ↑ a b Bowlingtreff Leipzig - the secret magnificent building. In: MDR time travel. Retrieved July 24, 2020 .
  3. ↑ Natural history in the bowling club. In: Insider tip Leipzig. Retrieved July 24, 2020 .
  4. ↑ Bowling together! Retrieved July 24, 2020 .
  5. ^ The bowling club on Wilhelm-Leuschner-Platz. In: Website of the Leipzig Cultural Foundation. Retrieved July 24, 2020 .
  6. ↑ Fun underground. In: Leipzig's independent university newspaper, April 2016. Accessed on July 24, 2020 .
  7. ↑ Leipzig pulls the rip cord: No natural history museum in Hall 7 of the spinning mill. In: Leipziger Internet Zeitung, 23 August 2018. Accessed on 24 July 2020 .
  8. ↑ This is what it looks like in the old bowling club at Leuschner. In: Sachsen Fernsehen July 17, 2020. Accessed July 24, 2020 .

Coordinates: 51 ° 20 ′ 8.4 "  N , 12 ° 22 ′ 36"  E