Sachsenplatz (Leipzig)

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Leipzig city center around 1913

The Sachsenplatz was from 1969 to 2002, the official name of the area between the Reich and Catherine Street in downtown Leipzig south of Brühl .

history

Area cleared of rubble between Katharinenstrasse and Reichsstrasse, looking towards Nikolaikirche (1951)

In the air raid on Leipzig on December 4, 1943 , the rows of houses in what had been the most densely built-up area in the city center were largely destroyed. In the years after the end of the war, the ruins were cleared, after which the area lay fallow for a long time. Edged to the north by the Brühl , the southern boundary was created between 1961 and 1964 by a six-storey residential building above the Salzgäßchen.

In 1968 the concrete architectural redesign of the square was decided, the urban planning concept of the complex was developed by an architects' collective under the direction of Ambros G. Gross, deputy chief architect for the city center. Only the largely reconstructed Katharinenstrasse as a western boundary was reminiscent of the original historical development of the area. The Böttchergäßchen, a connection between Reichstrasse and Katharinenstrasse before the area was destroyed during the war, was no longer taken into account in the redesign of the square. The laying of the foundation stone took place on March 4, 1969 in the presence of the Mayor of Leipzig, Walter Kresse . The name Sachsenplatz (as an appreciation of the Saxons in the history of the German labor movement) came into force on May 9, 1969, the official inauguration of the square took place on October 5, 1969 as part of the celebrations for the 20th anniversary of the GDR .

Information Center Leipzig Information on the Sachsenplatz

On the northern part of the area, the information center of the city of Leipzig (Leipzig-Information) was built as a central tourist contact point and event building within seven months after the laying of the foundation stone . Two collectives under the direction of the architects Horst Krantz (state-owned housing and community building combine VE WBK Leipzig ), Hans Großmann and Klaus Burtzig ( engineering school for construction Leipzig ) distinguished themselves for the designs . The steel frame construction for the information center was built by VEB Metallleichtbaukombinat, industrial assembly plant in Leipzig . For the students participating in the collective of the engineering school, the project planning work was rated as a final engineering work. The two-storey building with a floor area of ​​53 by 30 meters was characterized by fan-like staggered roof trusses and an almost completely glazed facade , the visible edges of the stepped roof by coated plastic panels . In the ground floor of a large were hall with service RCCBs and chairs as well as the Café Mokkabar with outdoor seating to be found to the west, about a 50-square-foot interior wall was created by sculptor Bruno Cuba as copper embossed work designed. The central space on the upper floor was a cinema and event hall with 316 seats; there were also several smaller conference , lecture and exhibition rooms on this level .

fountain
Ceramic column depicting scenes from the history of Leipzig

In front of the information center, a large open space was created , framed by three pavilions in bar frame construction for exhibition purposes on the eastern side, green areas on the southern and smaller green spaces and three pools with water features on the western side in the direction of Katharinenstrasse. A working group from VE Verkehrs- und Tiefbaukombinates Leipzig under the direction of Gerhard Scholz and the qualified gardener Othmar Fey were responsible for the design of the facilities . At the level of the Salzgäßchen, the transition to the slightly higher Reichsstraße was made by a small flight of stairs , which was decorated with a lion sculpture designed by August Gaul . A bronze sculpture of a pair of lovers created by Klaus Schwabe was installed in the southern part of the square; today the sculpture is located further south on Reichsstraße. The three sculptures in the fountain to the west, consisting of overlapping basic geometric shapes, were created by Harry Müller . The chrome-nickel steel constructions, each weighing around two tons and consisting of almost 1,000 individual parts, were installed between 1971 and 1972. Removed from Sachsenplatz in 1999 and stored, they were restored and put back into operation on Richard-Wagner-Platz on May 22, 2013 . On the northern side of the Brühl there was an almost five-meter-high column with ceramic cladding, created by the Leipzig sculptor Herbert Viecenz, on which events in Leipzig's history were depicted. The work of art, composed of numerous individual parts, was installed in November 1972. The column was originally supposed to be stored in 1999, but in the presence of the sculptor it was discovered on site that the ceramic parts were connected to the concrete core in such a way that they could not be recovered. Viecenz released the column for demolition, which then took place.

At the beginning of 1973 several baroque sculptures from the school of Balthasar Permoser were placed on the green spaces to the south . The sculptures restored by the Leipzig sculptor Hans-Joachim Förster were previously located in the park of Herfurth's summer residence in Prödel , which had to give way to the open- cast brown coal mine . The weathered sculptures were stored in the Gohliser Schlösschen from the end of 1981 / beginning of 1982 . On October 10, 1978, a memorial plaque designed by Hans-Joachim Förster was unveiled in a green area on the southwest corner of the square. Until 1943, the building of the Zimmermann coffee house , where Johann Sebastian Bach worked with the Collegium Musicum, was located here .

In 1988, the art and architecture historian Thomas Topfstedt in the Leipzig chapter of his book Städtebau in der DDR 1955-1971 criticized the design of Sachsenplatz as inconsistent, which caused the structural gap caused by the air raid in 1943 to "remain perceptible". In the same year, u. a. District architect Jürgen Löber and Leipzig's chief architect Dietmar Fischer described Sachsenplatz as part of a sequence of rooms between the main station forecourt and Thomaskirchhof as "too little differentiated".

In January 1996, the Planning and Building Department of the City of Leipzig carried out the so-called Städtebauwerkstatt Sachsenplatz to discuss whether and how the square could be considered as a new location for the Museum of Fine Arts, which was then temporarily housed . Sachsenplatz was recommended as a location, and in November of that year the council meeting followed the recommendation. In March 1997, a pan-European was design competition for the new museum building advertised in the first phase were judged 532 entries submitted, remained in the second stage of the competition 41 left. After a two-day consultation, the thirteen-member jury recommended on November 11, 1997 that the design by the Berlin architects Karl Hufnagel, Peter Pütz and Michael Rafaelian be awarded first prize.

Museum of Fine Arts (still without an enclosing glass cover)
Hartmann sculptures at the Katharinum
Tourist-Info Leipzig Linke Figur.jpg
Tourist-Info Leipzig rights figure.jpg


In 1997 the tourist information center moved to Richard-Wagner-Straße. Until 1998, the Leipzig inner-city weekly market was also temporarily housed on the site. On January 11, 1999, the construction work on Sachsenplatz began with the preparations for the dismantling of the fountain systems, and in February the asbestos removal of the building of the former Leipzig information center and the pavilions began. One of the three pavilions was initially not demolished and served as an information center about what was happening on site during the construction phase of the museum. From March of that year, extensive archaeological excavations with numerous finds were carried out, before the actual construction of the museum began after the Leipzig information was torn down in June at the end of October 1999. The foundation stone of the building was laid on June 5, 2000. Part of the design for the museum was to build four corner buildings in an angular shape around the cuboid house; work on the first part began in February 2002: At the corner of Reichsstraße and Böttchergäßchen, the new building of the Leipzig City History Museum (design: Ulrich Coersmeier, Architectural office Ilg Friebe Nauber, Cologne and Leipzig) started. On March 7th, 2004 the new building of the city museum was ceremoniously opened, on December 4th the museum of fine arts. On May 6, 2011, the Katharinum residential and commercial building (design: Gregor Fuchshuber, Leipzig), located on the corner of Böttchergäßchen and Katharinenstraße, followed as a second corner development . Two restored sculptures by Johannes Hartmann were integrated into the front of the corner building on Katharinenstrasse . The true-to-original replicas based on historical models were originally to be found at Jöcherschen Haus (Markt 2). Since then, the Leipzig Tourist Information has been represented there again at the old location. With the Aderhold house (firm attachment to the City History Museum, regarding the end of 2016), an Ibis hotel complex (corner of Brühl / Empire Street, opened in 2017) and the Bernstein Carré (commercial and residential building, corner of Brühl / Katharinenstraße inauguration in 2017), the last corner buildings of the former Sachsenplatz realized. Archaeological excavations were also carried out in advance for these buildings.

On August 1, 2002, the name Sachsenplatz was officially canceled, and a few weeks earlier the Böttchergäßchen was renamed as the street name. In the vernacular of Leipzig, the term Sachsenplatz for the area formerly known as this is still widespread.

Works of art on Sachsenplatz from 1969 to 2002, sorted by year of creation

literature

  • Waltraud Volk: Leipzig (historic streets and squares today). Verlag für Bauwesen, Berlin 1979, DNB 800140524 , pp. 66-69.
  • Thomas Topfstedt : Urban planning in the GDR 1955-1971 . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1988, ISBN 3-363-00364-1 , p. 88 f.
  • Wolfgang Hocquél (Ed.): Leipzig (Art History City Books). 3rd edition, EA Seemann, Leipzig 1990, ISBN 3-363-00343-9 , pp. 199-200.
  • City planning workshop Sachsenplatz. Documentation , publisher: City of Leipzig, Department for Planning and Construction. Leipzig 1996.
  • Museum of fine arts. Realization competition (contributions to urban development 19), publisher: City of Leipzig. Leipzig 1998, DNB 958846758 .
  • Joachim Tesch (Ed.): Building in Leipzig 1949 - 1990. Actors and contemporary witnesses on personal traces of Leipzig's building history , Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung Leipzig eV GNN Verlag, Schkeuditz 2003, ISBN 3-89819-159-1 .
  • Arnold Bartetzky : The Saved City. Architecture and urban development in Leipzig since 1989. Successes - Risks - Losses . Lehmstedt, Leipzig 2015, ISBN 978-3-942473-93-4 , pp. 49-59.

Web links

Commons : Sachsenplatz  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Wolfgang Hocquél 1990, p. 199.
  2. ^ A b Horst Siegel, Ambros G. Gross: The urban-architectural design of the Reichsstraße / Katharinenstraße area - a contribution by Leipzig architects and building professionals to the 20th anniversary of our republic . In: Leipziger Volkszeitung of July 13, 1968, p. 3.
  3. ↑ a b c d Waltraud Volk 1979, p. 66.
  4. ↑ So that our city becomes more beautiful. Laying of the foundation stone between Reichstrasse and Katharinenstrasse . In: Leipziger Volkszeitung of March 5, 1969, p. 12.
  5. ↑ Gina Klank, Gernot Griebsch: Lexicon of Leipzig street names . Verlag im Wissenschaftszentrum, Leipzig 1995, ISBN 3-930433-09-5 , p. 185.
  6. ^ "Sachsenplatz" ensemble handed over to the Leipzigers. Comrade Paul Fröhlich visited the new information center . In: Leipziger Volkszeitung of October 6, 1969, p. 1.
  7. ↑ Sachsenplatz construction site . In: Leipziger Volkszeitung from June 12, 1969, p. 12.
  8. ↑ Partial view of the future information center . In: Leipziger Volkszeitung of March 4, 1969, p. 12.
  9. ↑ a b c Waltraud Volk 1979, p. 67.
  10. ↑ A fountain sculpture . In: Leipziger Volkszeitung from September 16, 1971, p. 12; A few days before the start of the fair . In: Leipziger Volkszeitung from September 1, 1972, p. 12.
  11. ↑ Dandelions are bubbling again. Most of the Richard-Wagner-Platz released for the birthday party . In: Leipziger Volkszeitung, May 23, 2013, p. 13.
  12. ↑ New at Sachsenplatz: Tönern and "Tönend". Ceramic column as a "history book" consists of 400 individual parts . In: Central German latest news from November 30, 1972.
  13. ↑ Market hall, S-Bahn, art column. The reader question . In: Leipziger Volkszeitung of March 13, 2016, p. 18.
  14. ↑ A new location . In: Central German latest news from January 17, 1973; Do you know our Leipzig? . In: Leipziger Volkszeitung of February 24, 1972, p. 8.
  15. ↑ Where were the baroque figures? . In: Leipziger Volkszeitung from January 15, 1982, p. 12.
  16. ↑ In memory of JS Bach . In: Leipziger Volkszeitung of October 10, 1978, p. 12.
  17. ^ Arnold Bartetzky 2015, p. 52.
  18. ^ Engelbert Lütke Daldrup : A museum in the middle of the city . In: Museum of Fine Arts. Realization competition 1998, p. [I].
  19. ↑ Kerstin Decker: On Fridays the "Pfeffi" line was always in front of the house . In: Leipziger Volkszeitung of March 30, 1999, p. 18.
  20. ↑ a b Leipzig's Sachsenplatz has been transformed in six years . In: Leipziger Volkszeitung from December 4, 2004, p. 1.
  21. ↑ Andrea Richter: Builders moved to Sachsenplatz yesterday . In: Leipziger Volkszeitung from January 12, 1999, p. 13.
  22. ↑ Jens Rometsch: "Aliens" clean up, archaeologists find what they are looking for . In: Leipziger Volkszeitung of March 12, 1999, p. 13.
  23. ^ Mathias Orbeck: Baroque toy sledge was hidden in the "floor archive" . In: Leipziger Volkszeitung from 6./7. November 1999, p. 17.
  24. ^ Mathias Orbeck: The picture museum is now being excavated . In: Leipziger Volkszeitung of October 23, 1999, p. 15.
  25. ↑ Andrea Richter: In 2002, art is no longer a subtenant . In: Leipziger Volkszeitung from June 8, 2000, p. 13.
  26. ^ Thomas Müller: Museum next to museum - first part of the "picture frame" is being built . In: Leipziger Volkszeitung of February 6, 2002, p. 15.
  27. ↑ Mathias Orbeck: Treasures from old Leipzig now have a new home . In: Leipziger Volkszeitung of March 8, 2004, p. 11.
  28. ↑ "Return to the Round of the Great". Opening ceremony for the Leipzig Museum of Fine Arts . In: Leipziger Volkszeitung from December 6, 2004, p. 1.
  29. ↑ Jens Rometsch: Good chances for two more angles. Katharinum opened at the Bildermuseum / Further corner developments are to start shortly . In: Leipziger Volkszeitung from 7./8. May 2011, p. 17.
  30. ↑ Tourist information. In: www.leipzig.de. City of Leipzig, accessed on September 18, 2019 .
  31. ^ Jens Rometsch: Topping-out ceremony for two Ibis hotels in Leipzig. In: Leipziger Volkszeitung. November 9, 2016, accessed September 18, 2019 .
  32. ↑ Jens Rometsch: Fourth angle almost completely let. In: Leipziger Volkszeitung. November 9, 2016, accessed September 18, 2019 .
  33. ^ Street section directory 2003 , publisher: City of Leipzig, Office for Statistics and Elections. Leipzig 2003, p. 81 ( digitized at www.leipzig.de).

Coordinates: 51 ° 20 ′ 32.6 ″  N , 12 ° 22 ′ 32.8 ″  E