Rotes Rathaus
Rotes Rathaus stands in Berlin’s Mitte district, close to Alexanderplatz, with a red brick façade and a seventy-four-metre tower. Four wings enclose three courtyards within its square Renaissance plan.
Designed by Hermann Friedrich Waesemann, the building rose between 1861 and 1869 in the Northern Italian High Renaissance style. Its form recalls Thorn’s Old Town Hall and Notre-Dame de Laon’s cathedral tower. Allied bombing damaged the building during the Second World War, and reconstruction restored it between 1951 and 1956. Neues Stadthaus served as Berlin’s temporary town hall afterward. During Berlin’s division, these rooms housed East Berlin’s town hall, while Rathaus Schöneberg served West Berlin. Since reunification, the building has housed Berlin’s unified government.
More than 247 rooms include the Wappensaal, whose coats of arms represent Berlin and its districts. The Pillar Hall originally served as a library. Today, exhibitions use that space, while the main hall hosts large events and portraits of honorary citizens line the third floor. The building is wheelchair-accessible for visitors.
- City
- Berlin
- Content updated
Take this page with you
The myTuur app is free, and once you are standing at a spot its story starts by itself.
Spots like this one are the stops myTuur strings into tours through Berlin. In the app, each story begins where you stand: walk up to a spot and it starts, read it on screen or listen as you go, then follow the route to the next one.
What is myTuur?
myTuur is a free city-guide app. Its tours are built from spots, and each spot carries a story that starts when you get there, to read or to listen to as you like.