Gohlis Castle

The Gohliser Schlösschen is a Baroque building erected as a representative bourgeois country house in the Gohlis district of Leipzig. It is one of the city's attractions. The area of the Gohliser Schlösschen extends between Menckestraße (courtyard side) and Poetenweg (garden side) in Leipzig-Gohlis. It is about two kilometers from the city center and only 200 meters from Rosental via Turmgutstraße and the Parthe bridge.

In the years 1755/56, the Leipzig councilor and master builder Johann Caspar Richter (1708–1770) had a summer palace built in the village of Gohlis, located northwest of Leipzig. The plot of land on which the building was erected was created by combining two adjacent farm estates belonging to Christiana Regina Richter, the builder's wife. From comparative studies, it is assumed that the Leipzig city architect Friedrich Seltendorff, influenced by the Dresden country architect Johann Christoph Knöffel, provided the design.

Due to the high contribution payments that Richter, as a wealthy Leipzig citizen, had to make during the Seven Years' War, the interior work was delayed. After Johann Caspar Richter's death in 1770, his widow's next husband, Johann Gottlob Böhme (1717-1780), professor of history at Leipzig University, completed it. During this time, the Leipzig painter and sculptor Adam Friedrich Oeser created the paintings in the ballroom of the Schlösschen. The Schlösschen can be regarded as an intellectual center during this period. Georg Joachim Göschen and Christian Gottfried Körner are said to have been guests, as was Friedrich Schiller during his stay in Gohlis in 1785.

In 1793, the Gohliser Schlösschen fell to the city of Leipzig by will. During the Battle of Leipzig, it first provided quarters for high-ranking military officers, only to finally serve as a military hospital. In 1832, the city council sold it to the von Alvensleben family, from whom it passed in the next generation to the Leipzig merchant Christoph Georg Conrad Nitzsche. In 1906, the city finally became the owner of the building.

After a renovation in 1934/35, it was made accessible to the public as a "House of Culture" and used for cultural events. From 1951 to 1985, the Bach-Archiv Leipzig also had its headquarters here.

During the general renovation from 1990 to 1998, the building was restored to its 18th-century condition. From 1998, the Cultural Office of the City of Leipzig operated the house. At the end of 2003, austerity measures forced its closure. Since 2004, the Freundeskreis Gohliser Schlösschen e.V. has been the operator of the complex. The premises are used for concert and theater events, exhibitions, and civil weddings. Guided tours take place, and some rooms are gastronomically managed as a café and restaurant.