Construction history of the Globuswerke
The Globuswerke factory in the Plagwitz district of Leipzig was built in 1897 by entrepreneur Fritz Schulz Jr. as a production facility for cleaning and care products. The factory complex was expanded in 1905 and 1910 and, over time, acquired its characteristic appearance with yellow clinker brickwork, large arched windows and sculpturally structured façades. Particularly striking is the entrance area at Limburgerstraße 30 with its monumental figure of Atlas carrying a globe, which gave the factory its name. The buildings were technically advanced for their time: with reinforced concrete ribbed ceilings and generous lighting, they offered modern production conditions and, at the same time, representative industrial architecture of Leipzig’s Gründerzeit period.
Company and industrial history
The history of Globuswerke is closely linked to the development of industry in Leipzig and the Schulz/Philipp industrial family. The Vereinigte Neuburger Kreidewerke Schulz & Philipp in Bavaria, founded in 1893, gave rise to the Plagwitz factory in 1897, where the extracted chalk was processed into a wide variety of cleaning and care products. Around 1900, the business was flourishing and Fritz Schulz jun. AG was founded with subsidiaries in London and New York. Products such as ‘Globus cleaning extract’, ‘Globus leather grease’ and ‘Globella’ floor polish were sold throughout Germany, as were insect repellents such as mothballs. With their economic rise, the Philipp family soon became one of the most successful entrepreneurial families in Leipzig. During the Second World War, the production facilities were severely damaged, and the family left Leipzig in 1944 and moved to Bavaria.
After the end of the war, the company became VEB Globus-Werke Leipzig in the GDR, later known as Autopflegemittelwerk Leipzig. In addition to car care products such as Karipol, it produced well-known cleaning products such as Elsterglanz and Klarofix. After the political change, the company was privatised and production was finally shut down in 1995. The buildings fell into disrepair and parts of the inventory were left behind. It was not until the urban renewal of Plagwitz in the new millennium that the ensemble came back into focus. After years of vacancy and temporary use, the complex was finally taken over by the LEWO Group and comprehensively renovated starting in 2015. Today, the listed Globuswerke buildings house 62 flats and five office and studio units – an example of the successful transformation of Leipzig’s industrial buildings from production sites to high-quality residential addresses.
Our Streetline view of the Globuswerke was created as a contribution to our exhibition on the Saxon Year of Industrial Culture.
