Jon Searles' photos with the keyword: Rathaus

This is not a church, but Hamburg's city hall, or Rathaus. Built between 1886 and 1897, and designed by Martin Haller (1835-1925), who also designed the American Consulate, it survived World War II intact. One interesting anecdote is that in 1971, a secret room was found in the tower, leading to theories that there could be more. Officially, there are already 647 rooms known.

As opposed to the Neues Rathaus, this older Rathaus, on the same square, is genuinely medieval, constructed in about 1310, although as with the New City Hall, construction continued for many years, not being completed until 1394. It was redesigned twice, in 1470-1480 when it was rebuilt in late-Gothic style by the architect Jorg von Halsbach, and again in 1861-1864 in Neo-Gothic style, being completed only 10 years before the city government was moved to the New City Hall. It had to be rebuilt again in 1945-1974 to repair damage from World War II, and now exists in its form post-1974.

More flowerboxes and statues....

And....here's a larger view of the portal seen in Picture 3, although techically I don't know if this is really considered a portal.

Here's an alternate to Picture 2.

I decided given the way their colors stood out against the faded, drab parts of the building, the flowered required a high-saturation edit in Gimp.

The flower boxes were especially noticable on the City Hall when I visited in June, and it was raining for most of the time I was there so they were growing well.

This is the New Town Hall in Munich, which is actually newer than it looks. It looks like a very authentic gothic building, until you notice just how over-the-top the ornamentation is. It actually is a gothic revival, built between 1867 and 1908, although the city government moved there as early as 1874. In addition to all of the stationary statues, flowerboxes, and other ornamentation, the clock has automatons similar to the ones on the Prazky Orloj (Prague Astronomical Clock) on the Prague Old City Hall, although technically this clock isn't astronomical as far as I know.