UNIVERSITÄT - UNIVERSITY

This is a place that stops creating remous in the city. The most prestigious of the universities of the former East Germany (except Berlin), known for science and medicine in particular, but also theatre sciences or history, is at the heart of questions of politics, ideology and images. It was founded in 1409 by students from Prague (the oldest German-speaking university) fleeing the church (pro-Czech) movement and remains the country's second oldest. It was rebuilt in the th century and then presented a baroque facies. 60 to 70% of its substance was destroyed by the bombings of 1943-44. In 1953, the university was renamed Karl Marx University. In 1968, the Communist authorities decided to blast the Mighty (building bordering the Augustusplatz) which was partially damaged, including Saint Paul's Church, Paulinerkirche, Gothic, which was miraculously intact. A building in the communist functionalist style was erected, and a metal fresco was erected with the faces of Marx and Lenin above the University entrance.

At the end of the 1990 s, a Christian lobby attacked the destruction of the Communist University and for the same reconstruction of the church of Saint Paul. This idea was strongly contested by the whole left, because of the secular aspect of university. Finally, the lobby could partly impose its desire. The university began the mammoth work that began in 2007 to rebuild completely the college, with an architectural recall of the church and even an integrated chapel, the Paulinum. The aesthetic choice was very confusing for many, recalling American neo-conservative models. The new Mighty, including the Paulinum is a resolutely contemporary building, alternating thin columns of stone with grey gradients and glass columns making wells of light. On the edge of this structure with the theological and green reflections, metal, the facade of the old Gothic church, with a ceiling and window, is taken in this astonishing construction. Many Leipzigois hate the apparat buildings of this new university, which exhibits a foreign aesthetic to the city; others are fascinated. If the college has won a huge U.S. main, it has fewer seating seats than before its reconstruction! In the new Mighty, an exhibition recounts the history of the university in the city.