Fregehaus (Free House), Leipzig

The Fregehaus is a baroque merchant's house in the center of Leipzig.

The merchant Gottfried Otto bought the property at today's Katharinenstraße 11 in 1705 and had the Renaissance house there (probably built in 1535) rebuilt in the Baroque style by the Leipzig council mason Johann Gregor Fuchs in the years 1706 to 1707.

The four-wing building is laid out around a rectangular courtyard. The symmetrical main façade is characterized by a bay window decorated with garlands of fruit. There are 16 dormer windows in four rows on the steep roof with a 62-degree incline. The preserved parts of the previous building include the cross vault of the courtyard entrance and portals on the ground floor.

The Fregehaus owes its current name to the banker Christian Gottlob Frege II (1747–1816), who acquired it in 1782. It remained the seat of the private bank until 1945 and a commercial enterprise (with state participation) of the Frege family until 1976. From 1978 the Fregehaus was the seat of the VEB Leipzig Monument Preservation, which renovated the house from 1980 to 1986.