Alte Messe Leipzig (Old trade fair of Leipzig) is the circa site in the southeastern part of Leipzig's district Mitte, where from 1920 until 1991 the technical exhibitions of the Leipzig Trade Fair took place, as well as the buildings that stand on it – but not the trade fair itself, which found a new home at a new site in the northern part of Leipzig. Since 1996 there has been no trade fair activity on the old site.
Location
The old site is about three kilometres (two miles) from the city centre in the southeast. It is bordered in the north by Deutscher Platz and Philipp-Rosenthal-Straße, in the east by Prager Straße and the Leipzig Hbf–Leipzig-Connewitz railway line, in the south by Richard-Lehmann-Straße and in the west by Zwickauer Straße. The old site belongs to the district Zentrum-Südost (Centre-Southeast). The adjacent boroughs are Reudnitz-Thonberg, Stötteritz, Marienbrunn and Südvorstadt.
A straight line between the tall tower of the New Town Hall of Leipzig and the tall Monument to the Battle of the Nations – the so-called axis of the 18 October – goes through the old site. The axis is marked by the Street of 18 October (Straße des 18. Oktober) which is crossed at the old site orthogonally by a street named Alte Messe. Coming from today's point of intersection of both these streets, the old site was developed from 1913.
History
In 1913 an International Architecture Exhibition (Internationale Bauausstellung), opened in Leipzig in the presence of the last King of Saxony. For this, a new exhibition site was created behind the Thonberg manor on what had been farmland. This exhibition was followed in 1914 by an International Exhibition for Book Manufacturing and Art Work (Internationale Ausstellung für Buchgewerbe und Graphik, or Bugra) with 2.3 million visitors. In 1920, in three of the exhibition halls was held the Technical Trade and Construction Fair, which had taken place elsewhere in Leipzig from 1918. The economic development of the 1920s led to an enormous extension by the erection of further exhibition halls on the site. In 1928, there were 17 exhibition halls and several smaller structures with a total of 130,000 m2 (1,400,000 sq ft) of exhibition space. In 1930, the International Fur Trade Exhibition (Internationale Pelzfach-Ausstellung) brought another heyday.
During World War II, the arms industry occupied several halls in the form of aircraft production and maintenance. In the allied air raid of 4 December 1943, halls 4 and 14 respectively were completely and partly destroyed.
The first Trade Fair after the war was held in four halls in 1946. In the following years, several extensions, rebuildings and new constructions were carried out, among them in 1950 the conversion of the former Achilleion into the Soviet Pavilion, exhibition hall 7 (1977), exhibition hall 22 (1989–1992) and an administration building at the north gate. There also arose a lot of smaller buildings and temporary arrangements. From 1991 until 1996 some specialised fairs were undertaken, before the newly built exhibition halls in the north of Leipzig went into service in 1996.
Cultural heritage monuments
Some of the exhibition halls on the site are listed as cultural heritage monuments, in whole or in part. The listed buildings originated from the beginning (1920–1928) of the Technical Trade Fair on the site of Alte Messe when the Leipzig Trade Fair grew to become a World Trade Fair.
In the strategy document 2020 of the municipality of Leipzig, it is explained that the portico of the former exhibition hall 12 and the entirety of the former exhibition hall 16 have to be conserved in any circumstance; whereas the fates of other buildings are to be decided from case to case. Also, the preservation of exhibition hall 15, a milestone in the history of construction, could be secured by the buyer of the hall, a bicycle retailer.