New Town Hall (Leipzig)

The New Town Hall (German: Neues Rathaus) has been the home of Leipzig's city government since 1905. It is located in the Mitte district of Leipzig, sitting on the southwest corner of the city's "ring road," just across from the beautiful Propsteikirche. The most striking feature of this grand building is its tall tower, which rises to 114.8 meters or 377 feet—making it the tallest city hall tower in all of Germany. It even beats out Hamburg’s famous tower by a whole eight feet!

This amazing building isn’t just tall—it’s also huge! The New Town Hall has more rooms than any other city hall in the world, with a total of 1,708 rooms. From its grand halls to its many offices, it’s a place where important decisions for the city are made every day.

History

At the end of the 19th century, the Old Town Hall located at the Markt square was too small for the growing city of Leipzig. In 1895, the city was given the site of the Pleissenburg by the Kingdom of Saxony to build a new town hall. An architectural competition was held, and in 1897, Hugo Licht, the city's building director, was chosen to design it. His design motto was "Arx nova surgit - a new castle emerges." The famous sculptor Georg Wrba was also hired to create sculptures for the building.

The foundation stone of the New Town Hall was laid on October 19, 1899.

Architecture

The New Town Hall in Leipzig was built in a style called historicism and is made from light-grey limestone from Main-Franconia. The building has an unusual five-sided shape and covers more than 10,000 square meters (107,600 sq.ft.). There is a tall tower, and you can climb up 250 steps to look out over the city from the top.

On one side of the building are five statues representing Crafts, Justice, Book Art, Science, and Music. The large clock on the front of the building glows blue at night and has a Latin saying: MORS CERTA, HORA INCERTA, which means "Death is certain, its hour uncertain." Above the clock is a statue of Truth, and on the west side, there is a statue called "The official secret."

The Goerdeler Memorial

Near the New Town Hall in Leipzig, there is a memorial for Carl Friedrich Goerdeler. He was an important leader who stood against unfair treatment during a difficult time and served as Leipzig's Mayor from 1930 to 1937. The memorial was created by artists from New York, Jenny Holzer and Mike Glier, and was shown to the public on September 8, 1999. It features a deep bell shaft with a bronze bell inside, and quotes from Goerdeler’s letters and writings are displayed around it.

Culture

The Israeli writer Yosef Agnon won a big award called the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1966. In one of his stories, a young man from Galicia went to a new town hall in Leipzig in 1915 to get permission to stay there.

The town hall can also be seen in the background of a movie called Torn Curtain directed by Alfred Hitchcock.