New Town Hall (Neues Rathaus)
A monumental, palace-like city hall crowned by a vast green dome, famous for the curved elevator that leans as it climbs to the panorama platform. Despite its castle looks it opened in 1913, and it rests on a hidden forest of thousands of beech piles driven into the swampy ground.
About this place
Rising above the greenery of the Maschpark at the southern edge of the centre, the Neues Rathaus is the building most visitors mistake for a royal palace. It is in fact a working city hall, completed in 1913 in the grand, eclectic Wilhelmine style that piles towers, gables and a colossal dome into one theatrical whole. The dome climbs to almost 98 metres and long defined Hanover's skyline, while beneath the stone lies an extraordinary feat of engineering: more than six thousand beech piles were rammed into the soft former marshland to keep the massive structure from sinking. Inside, a rare tilted elevator follows the curve of the dome up to a viewing platform, and four detailed scale models on the ground floor trace the city's dramatic story from 1689 through its wartime destruction to the rebuilt present.
Key facts
- 97.73 metres — Height of the great dome, reached by the tilted elevator
- 6026 beech piles — Driven into the swampy ground to carry the building's weight
- 1913 year — The New Town Hall opened, famously paid for in cash
📍 Platz der Menschenrechte, 30159, Hannover