Gewandhaus
Gewandhaus stands in Leipzig as the home of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and the city’s third concert hall to carry this name. Its amphitheatrical main hall seats about 1,900 people, while the Mendelssohn Hall hosts chamber music, conferences, and other events.
The story began in 1781 above a cloth merchants’ store, where the suspended wooden hall became known for its distinctive sound. Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 premiered there in 1811, alongside works by Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Wagner, and Brahms. Martin Gropius designed the second hall, built between 1884 and 1886, before air raids damaged it in 1943 and 1944 and Leipzig demolished it in 1968.
Rudolf Skoda’s present building opened in 1981 with acoustics at its centre, continuing a musical tradition shaped by conductors including Felix Mendelssohn, Arthur Nikisch, and Bruno Walter. A Schuke organ from Potsdam carries 6,845 pipes, while Sighard Gille’s foyer mural, Song of Life, covers the ceiling as Europe’s largest contemporary painting of its kind. In 1989, Kurt Masur opened the hall to debates during East Germany’s peaceful revolution.
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