Hauptpostamt Leipzig, Cultural heritage monument in Leipzig, Germany.
The Hauptpostamt Leipzig is a 110-metre-long, seven-storey steel-frame building on Augustusplatz, erected from 1961 to 1964 to a design by Kurt Nowotny. Its front is a six-storey curtain wall of exposed concrete, glass and aluminium above a base clad in grey natural stone, with a short wing on Grimmaischer Steinweg. A clock on the upper right of the facade was removed in the 1990s.
The GDR built the Hauptpost from 1961 to 1964 to replace the old main post office destroyed in World War II, after the 1926 Oberpostdirektion building on the Südstraße passed to the Rat des Bezirkes Leipzig in 1952. Chief architect Kurt Nowotny designed the 110-metre steel-concrete block; 43 months of construction cost about 15.5 million DDR marks. It housed Postamt No. 1, the telegraph office and the Bezirk postal directorate until 1990. Vacant from 2011, it was bought in 2016 and rebuilt as Das lebendige Haus.
The name Hauptpost refers to the building's role as the main post office (Postamt Nr. 1, later Hauptpostamt C 1) of the GDR district of Leipzig. The small parcel-counter hall once held a mural by Bert Heller showing Ernst Thälmann speaking on Augustusplatz in 1930; it was later painted over. Since 2016 the complex has been marketed as Das lebendige Haus.
The building stands on the corner of Augustusplatz and Grimmaischer Steinweg, on Leipzig's Innenstadtring, reachable by tram lines running along the ring. It has been vacant since 2011, so there are no opening hours or counters; the reconstruction begun in 2016 under the name Das lebendige Haus is a building site. The 110-metre facade and the side wing on Grimmaischer Steinweg can be viewed from the public pavement.
The small parcel-counter hall once held a wall painting by Bert Heller (1912–1970) showing Ernst Thälmann speaking on Augustusplatz in 1930; it was later painted over. The analog clock high on the right of the facade, visible from afar, was removed in the 1990s.
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