Rathausturm

About this place

Dresden's New Town Hall was built between nineteen hundred and five and nineteen ten and formally opened on the first of October nineteen ten. Its tower rises one hundred metres and thirty centimetres, the tallest thing in the inner old town, and is crowned by the gilded figure known as the Rathausmann, carved by Richard Guhr: a Hercules standing guard over the city, five metres and five centimetres from base to crown, weighing one thousand seven hundred and fifty kilograms in copper sheet a millimetre and a half thick and gilded with about a hundred grams of leaf gold. It was from this tower that one of the defining photographs of the twentieth century was taken after February nineteen forty-five: a sandstone allegory on the balustrade stretching out its arm above a city burned flat to the horizon. That balustrade is still there. You can stand beside the same figure today and look out over the same city rebuilt. The climb is possible again after a long closure, having reopened in May of this year. Access is by guided tour only, about fifty minutes long, running six times a day from half past ten until half past three, at nine euros full and six reduced. More than two hundred and seventy steps stand between you and the viewing platform at sixty-eight metres, and there is no lift to the top. Group sizes are capped because peregrine falcons nest in the tower; parties were limited to six until the young birds fledged in September.