The Reichstag
The proud home of the German parliament, a Neo-Renaissance giant burned in 1933, gutted in 1945, and gloriously reborn with a walkable glass dome. Above its great portico, four bronze words still declare the building's purpose: 'Dem Deutschen Volke', to the German People.
About this place
Standing on the lawn before its colossal west portico, you face one of Europe's most eloquent buildings, a structure whose stones carry the entire arc of modern German history. Paul Wallot designed it in a confident Neo-Renaissance style, and it rose between 1884 and 1894 to house the parliament of Kaiser Wilhelm's young empire. It witnessed the birth of the Weimar Republic in 1918, then burned in the notorious fire of February 1933 that helped Hitler seize absolute power. In 1945 a Soviet soldier raised the red flag over its shattered shell, an image flashed around the world. For decades afterward it sat scarred and half empty on the very edge of the Berlin Wall's death strip, a wounded relic in a divided city. After reunification the British architect Norman Foster transformed it, preserving the historic walls while crowning the chamber with a luminous glass dome where ordinary citizens spiral up walkways directly above their elected representatives. When the Bundestag returned in 1999, the building had become exactly what Berlin itself is: destroyed, divided, and rebuilt into a confident symbol of open democracy.
Key facts
- 1894 year completed — Paul Wallot's original parliament building was finished after a decade of construction
- 23.5 metres — The height of Norman Foster's walk-in glass dome above the plenary chamber
- 3000000 visitors a year — Roughly the number who climb the free dome, one of Berlin's most popular sights
📍 Platz der Republik 1, 10557, Berlin