The Bose House

Home of the Leipzig Bach Archive is the 16th-century building Thomaskirchhof 16 (also known as the Bose House), one of the oldest structures still standing on the south flank of St. Thomas's Square. Georg Heinrich Bose, a wealthy gold and silver merchant, acquired the stately Renaissance house now bearing his name in 1710.

He subsequently enlarged and refurbished it in Baroque style, featuring a magnificent festival and concert hall. The so-called »Sommersaal« (Summer Hall), exceptional in its design and restored to its nearly original state in 2002, reveals a music gallery with a unique sound (»echo«) chamber situated above the ceiling that can be closed by a movable painting, surprising audiences with captivating acoustic effects.

The Bach and Bose families were once neighbours and were also closely connected by well-documented bonds of friendship. Today the historic Summer Hall of the Bose House welcomes its visitors to a unique concert room that Johann Sebastian Bach and many of his friends and colleagues knew well. The Bach Archive organises a series of concerts in the Summer Hall which is unique to Leipzig mainly focuses on the music of the 17th and 18th centuries.