From 1896 to 1898, the Leipzig entrepreneur Richard Pudor had a new building built on the site of a former residential and commercial building based on plans by the Berlin architect Albert Bohm (1853–1933). He had previously designed the Café Bauer on Roßplatz. The new building was to serve as an exhibition center for the sample fair that was establishing itself over the years. In order to keep the economic risk within limits, a fashion department store was initially housed on the ground floor and first floor, and only the upper floors were used as exhibition space.
In 1904 the building was expanded to include the neighboring property on Grimmaische Strasse (No. 7). The name Reichshof also caught on at this time, apparently with reference to the Reichsstrasse, which was part of the course of the Via Imperii (Imperial Road). During the conversions carried out in 1934, the neighboring Art Nouveau house in Grimmaische Straße (No. 9-11), which had also been built by Albert Bohm, was connected.[2]
In 1945 the Reichshof was expropriated and turned into a department store for the officers of the occupation forces stationed in the Soviet occupation zone and East Germany. The name “Russian department store”, which was widely used in Leipzig for the Reichshof, dates from this period. From the early 1960s there was a furniture store.
In 1990/1991 the Reichshof was reconstructed by the builder's great-grandson and reopened as a department store. The copper sheet roof of the building received first prize in the competition "The most beautiful copper works in Germany 1993".[