Tall House Kroha

The building was built on the site, which since 1872 was occupied by the so-called Theater Passage - the first shopping arcade of the city, connecting Ritter Strasse and Goethe Strasse streets and facing the New Theater on Augustusplatz . With the renovation of the adjacent buildings at the beginning of the 20th century, the Theater Passage - especially its part located on Goethe-Strasse - appeared to be “squeezed” between the new buildings dominating on Augustusplatz. At the same time, the inner city of Leipzig was actively turning into a kind of City , where trade, buildings of banks and insurance companies were concentrated. Owner and son of the founder of Privatbank Kroch jr. Hans Kroch was able in 1920 to acquire this site in order to build a new banking building. At the same time, the size of the site determined the construction here in height.

At the competition announced in 1926, however, it was not possible to choose the obvious winner, and, ultimately, the victory went to one of the second places to the Orion project of German Bestelmeyer ( German German Bestelmeyer , 1874-1942) from Munich , who proposed the construction of a restrained in the decoration of the facade of a twelve-story office building topped with a bell. The basis was taken by the Venetian Clock Tower on St. Brand .

Despite the fact that the competition for construction was supported by the city council, the height of the banking tower (43 meters), equal to the university church , turned out to be a subject of heated discussion (then the maximum permissible height was 22 meters), and therefore the preliminary permission for the construction provided for a “compromise” height 29 meters. Trying to convince the original design of the harmony, according to the instructions of Bestelmeyer, the upper four floors were built of wood, and in December 1927 the building received final permission for completion.

At the end of construction, opinions regarding Kroch’s house remained divided: if some critics perceived the “ strange tower ” as a “ not too encouraging symbol of modern fashion ” (according to the writer and lecturer of Reclam publishing house Julius Haarhaus), others believed that it came out even too squat (urban designer Werner Hegemann). ^[one]

Built in reinforced concrete and lined with light sandstone, the High-rise building of Kroch impresses with its laconic simplicity and even functionality. Few decorative elements indicate creative activity and prosperity: for example, the figures on the frieze above the entrance symbolize craft, trade and agriculture, black marble slabs in the aisle carry images of the four main elements , the side facades visible only from a considerable distance are decorated with a repeating image of the cornucopia .

The building is crowned by a massive bell group installed on its top: three bells of the German company located according to the "nested doll principle" . Glockengießerei Schilling & Söhne from Apolda and two three-meter- long male nuders with hammers in the hands of Josef Wackerle and beating watches. Under the group is the Latin inscription OMNIA VINCIT LABOR (the work overcomes everything), dating back to the quote from Virgil from the book of Georgica . Under them, at the height of the 12th floor, there is a paired relief image of lions trampling balls and looking in opposite directions, and between them - in the form of a ball, a partially gilded indicator of the phases of the moon , resembling similar medieval mechanisms. A floor below, in place of the central window opening, a clock mechanism with a dial with a diameter of 4.3 m is arranged.

The surviving former operating room of Bank Kroch is considered one of the best examples of art deco interiors in Leipzig.

• Junge, Cornelia: Das Glockenspiel versöhnte. Die Geschichte des Kroch-Hauses // Journal Universität Leipzig, Heft 4/2002. - S. 39-41.
• Weinkauf, Berndt: Architekturführer. Die 100 wichtigsten Leipziger Bauwerke. Berlin, Jaron Verlag, 2011 .-- S. 128-129. ISBN 978-3-89773-913-0
• Zimmerl, Ulrike; Graul, Andreas: Banken in Leipzig. Vom Barock bis zur Moderne. Halle (Saale), Mitteldeutscher Verlag, 2015 .-- S. 111-116. ISBN 978-3-95462-474-4