Industrial history of the Buchwerk
This industrial building on Albert-Schweizer-Strasse, now called Buchwerk, has a history full of structural changes. First, in 1870, a machine-building factory, it was built by the manufacturer Christian Mansfeld and was expanded in 1889 and 1903. Around 1912/13 the complex was rebuilt by the architect Arthur Dietrich and became the Leipziger Großbuchbinderei (bookbindery) H. Fikentscher, which was further extended on the then Obere Münsterstraße in 1922. The monumental symmetrical building was decorated in yellow clinker bricks, which in Leipzig usually indicates a connection with the book industry. The plant for the production of book bindings, which at that time was served by tracks to the neighboring Eilenburg Station (the station of the Leipzig book industry), became the VEB Interdruck Graphischer Großbetrieb Leipzig in GDR times. In the post-reunification period, the industrial monument eventually stood empty for a long time before being redeveloped by Stadtbau AG in 2016-18 and converted into the “Buchwerk” residential complex.
Reudnitz street front
The listed building complex of the former bookbindery is located in the Reudnitz district, in Leipzig’s east. On the right, in the direction of Oststrasse, there are typical Wilhelminian style buildings, while on the left, towards Mühlstrasse, the architectural style of the period after the First World War is already recognizable. At the back of the building, on Mühlstrasse, the next industrial building is directly adjacent, the former Riebeck brewery, later Reudnitz brewery and today Sternburg brewery.
