Stadtgeschichtliches Museum Leipzig

The Ball Room of the Old Town Hall

is 53 metres in length and was used to host the Saxon regents’ banquets, society weddings, tradesmen’s festivities and student balls. It was also used as a court room.

Today, the room is used by the City of Leipzig for concerts and cultural events, among other things.

Contact:

Kathleen Belger
Email: kathleen.belger@leipzig.de
Tel./Fax: 0341/ 2 61 77 66

A 25-square-meter scale model of the city of Leipzig dating from 1823 greets the visitor at the entrance to the Festsaal. Constructed over a period of seven years by the Leipzig upholsterer and furniture maker Johann Christoph Merzdorf, the three-dimensional model became the property of the Leipzig history society in 1874 and found its home in the Altes Rathaus in 1909 when the Stadtgeschichtliches Museum was founded.

At the north end is the Pfeiferstuhl, or minstrels’ gallery, where the city pipers played the music for the dances. The masonry work in sandstone and porphyry is by Paul Wiedemann and is an example of perfect renaissance architecture from 1557.

The lower of the two rows of pictures along the north, south and east walls of the room are likenesses of Leipzig city magistrates, while the upper row are full-length portraits of Saxon regents. The three baroque sandstone chimneys were created by Friedrich Fuß in around 1610.
Between 1906 and 1909 a porphyry doorway resembling the entrance to the Rathaus was added to the south wall as a counterbalance to the minstrel’s gallery and to commemorate the building’s conversion into a museum.