Кайзерзал, Ерфурт

Two university buildings were joined in 1769 to give Erfurt a ballroom and a theatre, and the guest list that followed is remarkable for a provincial town: Goethe and Schiller, then Paganini, Liszt and Clara Schumann. The name arrived on 28 September 1808, when Napoleon and Tsar Alexander I were received here during the congress that drew half the princes of Germany to the city. Rebuilt in 1831 behind a classical front and reworked in 1871 as a concert and ball room, the hall was formally christened Kaisersaal at that point. In the later twentieth century it served as the cultural house of an office-machinery works. A thorough restoration between 1991 and 1994 returned it to public use, and its main room now seats an audience of around 560.