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New Town Hall

The New Town Hall has been the seat of Leipzig's municipal administration since 1905 and stands on the site of the former Pleissenburg fortress, in the Mitte district, inside the ring road and facing the Propsteikirche. The complex, in historicist style and built in Franconian shell limestone, covers more than 10,000 m² and forms an irregular pentagon. Its main tower is 114.8 metres tall, the tallest town hall tower in Germany, and the building is the town hall with the most rooms in the world, at 1,708. The tower rests on the base of the old Pleissenburg tower, and from the fourth floor 250 steps lead up to the upper gallery, from where you can look out over the city. On the south-west façade there are five statues representing Craft, Justice, the Art of the Book, Science and Music, the work of several artists. The clock, lit blue at night, bears the Latin inscription MORS CERTA, HORA INCERTA. At the south-western end, on the Promenadenring, stands the memorial to Carl Friedrich Goerdeler, mayor of Leipzig between 1930 and 1937 and a prominent resistance figure against Nazism, unveiled in 1999: it consists of a five-metre-deep bell pit with a bronze bell and quotations from his writings. The building also appears as a setting in Alfred Hitchcock's film Torn Curtain and in a novel by Yosef Agnon.

Things to do at New Town Hall: 5 missions

• Climb the 250 steps to the tower's upper galleryClimb from the fourth floor to the tower's upper walkway and take in Leipzig from above.
• Find the figure of «The Official Secret» on the west gableGo round the building to the west side and find the personification sculpted by Johannes Hartmann.
• Identify the five statues on the south-west façadeStand before the south-west façade and pick out Craft, Justice, Book Art, Science and Music.
• Find the inscription «MORS CERTA, HORA INCERTA» on the clockLook up at the town hall clock and read the Latin inscription.
• Visit the New Town HallVisit the New Town Hall in Leipzig and get to know the place in person.

Near New Town Hall

Source: Fuentes verificadas