At tall, The Westin Leipzig is actually at the second rank of the tallest buildings in Leipzig. The house, built for the GDR hotel operator Interhotel as Hotel Merkur, has belonged to the Starwood hotel chain since 2003, and since the takeover it has now belonged to the Marriott group. It has 436 rooms on 27 floors, of which 17 are guest floors and 3 are office floors. There is a swimming pool and a wellness area on the 4th floor. The building houses the Gusto, Brühl and Falco restaurants and the Shinto bar/lounge. From study to realization In the concept for the Leipzig Trade Fair in 1971, the construction of additional hotels for trade fair visitors from abroad was a priority task. The urban planners from the office of the chief architect of the city of Leipzig had examined and proposed several locations. But things turned out differently. The draft by the architects from Tokyo's Kajima Corporation was already complete; the only thing that had to be done in Leipzig was finding a suitable plot of land and making it available. A location was chosen that had not previously been intended for a high-rise dominant. The contract to build the 5-star hotel was signed in 1978 between the GDR foreign trade company Limex and the Japan GDR Project Company. Kajima took over the project planning and execution. The cost of construction was 16.1 billion Japanese yen. This corresponded to around 157 million Deutschmarks at an average exchange rate traded on international exchange markets on 1 January 1981. The foundation stone was laid in September 1978. All of the precast concrete parts needed to build the outer facades were delivered from West Berlin. On 31 January 1981 Kajima handed over the import object to the Interhotel association. On 13 March 1981, at the same time as the opening of the Frühjahrsmesse (Spring Trade Show), the hotel was also opened under the name Hotel Merkur. In addition to ministers and state secretaries of the GDR, about 100 representatives of Japanese business were present. The construction company (shell construction) was Dyckerhoff & Widmann AG (DYWIDAG Berlin/West branch), which also had the precast concrete parts delivered from West Berlin. The lift assembly was carried out by a Japanese company. AB Svenska Fläktfabriken from Sweden took over the heating, air conditioning and plumbing. East German companies were involved in the construction, from the interior