Königshaus

On the south side of Leipzig's market square stands the Königshaus, a stucco-faced townhouse with shops and a passage below. It first rose around 1560, on ground where Leipzig merchants had built since at least 1459. In 1706 and 1707 the builder Johann Gregor Fuchs reshaped it in the baroque style, keeping much of the older fabric. The remodelling raised the windows, altered the shopfronts and added a three-storey wooden bay window with a balcony towards the market. The merchant Andreas Dietrich Apel commissioned the work, and after his death in 1718 the Thomae family kept it for generations.

For centuries the city rented the first floor to put up distinguished guests. Elector Johann Georg the Fourth married Eleonore of Ansbach-Brandenburg here in 1692, and Peter the Great of Russia followed in 1698. August the Strong marked his birthday beneath this roof several times. A ballroom in the rear building hosted Johann Adam Hiller's concerts until the society moved to the Gewandhaus in 1781. War then supplied the house with its most dramatic chapter. In 1813 Frederick Augustus the First of Saxony lodged here during the Battle of Leipzig, and Napoleon came after his defeat.

The twentieth century kept remaking the building's interior. A cinema called the American Theater screened films here from 1906 to 1913. Gustav Pflaume then stripped the side and rear buildings away for trade fair use, and a modern gable replaced the old roof. In 1932 the architect Curt Schiemichen cut a ground-floor passage, which now connects to the Messehofpassage. Offices fill the upper floors, and the 1990s brought the facade back to its baroque appearance. Inside, a Renaissance spiral staircase of Rochlitz porphyry tuff from around 1610 still stands.