Goethestraße 1, Cultural heritage monument at Goethestrasse 1, Leipzig, Germany

The Königsbau at Goethestraße 1 occupies a corner plot of about 40 by 30 metres on Augustusplatz. Its five-storey sandstone facade in Historicist style is divided by Ionic columns, with trapezoid-framed windows on the lower floors and a double row of windows above a dummy balustrade. Seven round-arched gables crown the roof, and the first bay on the ground floor opens as a passage to Grimmaische Straße.

The Königsbau AG, owned by the Bamberger family, commissioned Leipzig architects August Hermann Schmidt and Arthur Johlige to build a department store at Augustusplatz. Bamberger & Hertz opened its "special house for men's, boys' and sports clothing" on 18 October 1911, though the full building was ready only in April 1913. After the November pogrom of 1938 the firm was expropriated; the building was rebuilt by 1949 and gutted and rebuilt inside from 1998 to 2000.

The name Königsbau comes from the Königsbau AG, the Bamberger family company that built it. From the ground floor on Grimmaische Strasse, Blumen-Hanisch sold flowers for over 40 years, so Leipzig residents arranged to meet "bei Blumen-Hanisch". The concert café Corso, founded by pastry chef Otto Kuttert and taken over by Ernst Fischer in 1926, was another tenant.

The Königsbau stands at the corner of Goethestraße and Grimmaische Straße, directly on Augustusplatz, a short walk from the main station and tram stops. The first axis of the ground floor along Grimmaische Straße is open as a passage, so pedestrians can cut through the building. The sandstone facade is best seen from the square side.

The sandstone facade is listed as a monument, but the building was gutted and rebuilt internally between 1998 and 2000, when the Alte Leipziger insurance company owned it again. Its ground-floor passage on the axis parallel to Grimmaische Strasse lets pedestrians cut through the corner block.