Karl-Heine-Strasse

Karl-Heine-Strasse 12

The Villa Sack is a free-standing building set back from the street. Built in the neo-baroque style in 1909, it was for more than 20 years the prestigious family seat of agricultural machinery manufacturer Gustav Rudolph Friedrich Sack. Currently it is the office for two divisions responsible for criminal matters of the Federal Court of Justice of Germany.[3]

An iron gate at the street adverts a school by an inscription reminding of the peintor and sculptor Max Klinger which was built in 1927/28 according the concepts of Hubert Ritter and Max Baumeister in the style of Neues Bauen.[4] It is accessible via a bridge over the water course of the Kleine Luppe. After a renovation according to the guidelines for historical monuments it was reopened in 2021 under the name Schule am Palmengarten (litt.: School at the Palmengarten). The cost was 41 millions of Euro.[5]

The Wagner-Nietzsche Villa is a residential building also from the beginning of the 20th century. The name came about because of the architectural decoration, which refers to the works The Ring Of The Nibelung by Richard Wagner (1813–1883) and Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900).[6]

The Felsenkeller (litt.: rock cellar) is a performance hall where concerts, public readings and other cultural events take place.[7] The neo-baroque building was built in 1890 according to plans by the architects August Hermann Schmidt (1858–1942) and Arthur Johlige (1857–1937). It then replaced the first Felsenkeller which was located a little further north. The complex included a ballroom and concert hall with a capacity of 1,000 seats, as well as an open-air cinema, veranda, terrace and garden. The large hall served as a rallying and meeting point in the labor and communist movement. Protagonists such as Karl Liebknecht, Rosa Luxemburg, Clara Zetkin and Ernst Thälmann spoke there.[8] The building was not damaged during World War II. In 1946, the Leipzig branch of Free German Youth was founded there. In the early 1980s and then in 2005, the building was renovated.

The Schaubühne

The Schaubühne Lindenfels (litt.: Lindenfels performance stage) consists of a former ballroom where plays and concerts are staged, as well as a café-restaurant, and the Grüne Salon (litt.: green room) used as an arthouse cinema.[9]

It was in 1876 that the mason Carl Schmidt, already the owner of a neighboring restaurant, built a ballroom of the name in this location in the space of three months. It was enlarged by Theodor Wezel in 1892 and bought in a court auction by the brewer Otto Besser. He named the premises Schloss Lindenfels (“Lindenfels Castle”). Lindenfels Castle was one of the most important establishments in Leipzig at the time.[10] From 1906, films were shown there.[11]

The performance hall was emptied in the 1940s and no more performances took place there. In 1943, part of the building was sold for a sheet metal and stove pipe manufacturing factory, the Fröhlich Fabrik. In 1949, the building became home of a Volkseigener Betrieb and the place was renovated. From 1956 to 1987, the building served as a cinema named Lichtspieltheater Lindenfels. A boiler problem in 1987 led to the closure of cinema.[12]

In 1993, a team of actors of the Jena theater decided to buy the premises to turn it into a multi-purpose entertainment venue, including a concert hall, a theater and an art house cinema. Director Volker Schlöndorff premiered his films there. Nina Hagen and Funny van Dannen gave concerts there. Wladimir Kaminer organizes a “Russian disco” (Russendisco) there.[13]

The imposing Westwerk building seen from the King Albert Bridge.

The Westwerk (litt.: factory of the west) is an artists' town in the Neues Bauen architectural style. It has a surface area of 16,000 m² (172,222.6 sq ft) over which the workshops are distributed. The building is rented by the artists' association ars*avanti 6 to Westwerk Logistics GmbH, owned by the industrial engineer Christian Voigt living in Starnberg.[14][15]

It was originally a foundry built in 1874 by Kaspar Dambacher. The company Schumacher & Koppe set up a steel foundry there in 1882. Max Klinger worked artistically there in a machine shed.[16]

In 2017, an announcement from the owner that part of the premises would be sold for commercial purposes, notably to establish a supermarket, caused a stir among artists. In February 2017, 1,000 people demonstrated to “save Westwerk”.[17]

Airplane on the roof

Eye-catching is the airplane of the type Ilyushin Il-18 on the roof. It belongs to the »Da Capo Vintage Car Museum & Event Hall«.[18]

The Liebfrauenkirche (Litt.: Church of Our Lady) is a catholic church located at the western end of Karl-Heine-Strasse, between Engertstrasse and the railway line, and was built in a neo-Romanesque style between 1907 and 1908. The adjoining presbytery was built shortly before, between 1905 and 1906. The church has a 45.5 m (149.3 ft) tall bell tower and two towers on the west gable (overlooking the railway) of 33.5 m (109.9 ft) each.[19]