Grassi Museum

The museum is named after Franz Dominic Grassi, a Leipzig businessman of Italian descent, who bequeathed over two million marks to the city upon his death in 1880.

[1] This helped pay for a number of new constructions, including the Gewandhaus and the Mende Fountain, as well as the "Old Grassi Museum".

The old museum became too small for the collections, prompting its director to call for an architecture competition to design a new building, to be paid for with the Grassi bequest.

The winning firm designed a building with elements of New Objectivity and Art Deco, based around several courtyards.

[5][6] The Grassi Museum hosts an annual trade fair in October, the Grassimesse, whose origins go back to 1920.