Imperial Court Building
The Imperial Court building was designed and built as a court building for the Imperial Court and has served as the seat of the Federal Administrative Court since 2002. It is located in the immediate vicinity of the New Town Hall in Leipzig's music district .
architecture
The building of the house was preceded by an architectural competition, the requirements of which were published in the Centralblatt of the building administration in March 1885. The imperial court building was built between 1888 and 1895 by Ludwig Hoffmann (1852–1932) and Peter Dybwad (1859–1921) in seven years . They had the Award Application won, but then built in a somewhat modified form. The building ties in with the Italian late Renaissance (and therefore with Roman antiquity) as well as buildings from the French Baroque . The conventional classification of the building in late historicism has proven to be problematic in the context of an art-historical analysis of the building. The Imperial Court building is similar to the Reichstag building . The buildings were erected at the same time and are committed to historical palace and museum architecture.
A high dome is enthroned on the imposing building and is decorated with the sculpture The Truth . The main portal of the building faces east on the square named after the first President of the Imperial Court, Eduard von Simson (1810–1899). The north side is decorated with sculptures from then and now respected persons of German legal history: Eike von Repgow ( Sachsenspiegel ), Johann von Schwarzenberg ( Constitutio Criminalis Bambergensis ), Johann Jacob Moser , Carl Gottlieb Svarez ( General Landrecht ), Anselm von Feuerbach and Friedrich Carl von Savigny .
The interior of the building is designed both functionally and creatively for the originally intended use as a court of law. The sculptures, sculptures and elaborate wall paintings deal with the subjects of investigation, judgment, execution and grace. The large conference room is particularly splendidly designed , with symbols and coats of arms of all the states of the time on its walls. The leaded glass windows there show the coats of arms of all cities that were the seat of a higher regional court. All the figurative and ornamental glass paintings in the building were created by Alexander Linnemann from Frankfurt am Main .
Soviet tank in front of the building, around June 17, 1953
Building portal with tympanum (2006)
use
From 1895 to 1945 the building served its actual purpose to accommodate the imperial court . In addition, the Reich Prosecutor's Office had its seat here, which as the highest prosecution authority was the historical forerunner of the Federal Prosecutor's Office .
In World War II the building was destroyed by a third. After the renovation, the Museum of Fine Arts , whose own museum building had been destroyed , moved in in May 1952 . In the Grande Salle an exhibition on was Reichstag fire trial entitled " Georgi Dimitroff Museum " established. Over the years, other rooms were used by different institutions, from the Leipzig branch of Landeshauptarchiv Saxony, the Geographic Institute, the Geographical Society and a dubbing studio of DEFA .
Until the 1990s, today's central office for German personal and family history in Leipzig was housed in the building of the Imperial Court. After the Leipzig State Archives were built in 1995, the central office was incorporated and relocated there.
After German reunification , the highest ordinary court in the Federal Republic of Germany, the Federal Court of Justice , was not relocated to the former location of the Reich Court. Decisive for this decision of the German Bundestag were political location considerations in the federal distribution struggle of the federal states. The exemplary restored courthouse of the former Imperial Court in Leipzig is therefore used appropriately by the Federal Administrative Court.
The decision of the Bundestag not to use the building for the Federal Court of Justice was also justified by the fact that the Reich Court was closely involved with the unjust National Socialist state. Nevertheless, the Federal Court of Justice regards itself as the legitimate owner of the library of the Reichsgericht, which has only partially returned to the Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig.
From mid-1998 to October 2001 the building was extensively renovated. In order to take into account the space requirements of the Federal Administrative Court, another upper floor was added to the roof, which is set back so far behind the roof balustrade that the external appearance of the building is not disturbed. The Pleißemühlgraben was uncovered again in front of the building ; it flowed underground here for many years.
On August 26, 2002, the seat of the Federal Administrative Court was relocated from the building of the former Prussian Higher Administrative Court in Berlin to the Reich Court building in Leipzig.
The latest chapter in the use of the Reichsgericht building officially began with the inauguration as a federal administrative court on September 12, 2002.
Public accessibility
The entrance hall including the corridors and the magnificent large conference room are open to all visitors. Interested parties can take part in guided tours through other parts of the courthouse after registering in advance. Since May 31, 2007 there is a museum room with the exhibition The Imperial Court Building and its Users .
literature
- Steffen-Peter Müller: The imperial court building in Leipzig. Seat of the Federal Administrative Court. Kunstverlag Fink, Lindenberg 2010, ISBN 978-3-89870-240-9 .
- Federal Ministry for Transport, Building and Housing (Ed.): The Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig. Restoration and reconstruction of the former imperial court building . Leipzig 2002, without ISBN, 94 pages. Published on the occasion of the inauguration of the building on September 12, 2002.
- Thomas G. Dorsch: The imperial court building in Leipzig. Demand and reality of a state architecture. Lang, Frankfurt am Main et al. 1999, ISBN 3-63135060-0 (also dissertation, University of Marburg 1998).
- Hermann Rückwardt: The imperial court building in Leipzig. Original photographic recordings of nature in collotype. Delivery 1. Schimmelwitz, Leipzig 1898 ( digitized version ).
Web links
- Building officer Hermann Ludwig: The Imperial Court building in Leipzig. Overall views and details according to the original drawings of the facades and the interior, as well as nature photographs of the most remarkable parts of this building, which was erected between 1887 and 1895. Berlin: Hessling 1898 as a scan at the Architekturmuseum - 100 contemporary panels and photos
- Müller, Volkmar: The building of the Reichsgericht zu Leipzig, a description of the building and its details, at the same time a guide through its rooms. With 5 illustrations, 2 plans and a portrait of the builder. Georg Siemens Publishing House, Berlin, 1895
- The Imperial Court Museum
- Sketch drawings by 26 participants for the competition Reichsgericht Leipzig (Architekturmuseum TU Berlin)
- Joint press release by the Federal Court of Justice and the Federal Administrative Court (2015): 120 years of the Reich Court building in Leipzig
Individual evidence
- ↑ The competition for drafts for the Imperial Court House in Leipzig . In: Centralblatt der Bauverwaltung , No. 11A, March 18, 1885, pp. 113/114.
- ^ Linnemann archive
- ^ Post-war period: Museum and studio. bverwg.de, accessed on December 15, 2013 .
- ↑ Note in the imprint in: Federal Ministry of Transport, Building and Housing (Ed.): The Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig. Restoration and reconstruction of the former imperial court building . Leipzig 2002.
Coordinates: 51 ° 19 ′ 58.9 ″ N , 12 ° 22 ′ 11.2 ″ E