Bonn Old Town Hall

Twelve cannon shots echoed across Bonn's central market square on April 24, 1737, as Prince-Elector Clemens August laid the foundation stone for a new town hall. Artillery bombardment during the 1689 Siege of Bonn had ruined the previous 15th-century structure. Court architect Michel Leveilly designed the replacement—a four-story Rococo seat of civic power defined by seven window axes and a dormered mansard roof. Workers finished the shell late that year, allowing the city magistrate to occupy the building by October 1738. Exterior plastering and the gilded iron railings on the double staircase took until 1780 to complete.

Inside the entrance hall, a medieval stone sculpture depicts a lion pinning a boar, symbolizing the triumph of good over evil. Upstairs in the Gobelinsaal, two large wall hangings crafted in 1750 line the room where foreign leaders sign the city's Golden Book.

On October 18, 1944, Allied bombing raids burned the hall down to its exterior perimeter walls. Builders restored the structure by 1950, raising its roofline higher than the original design. As Bonn became West Germany’s capital, the gilded staircase emerged as an international stage. On September 12, 1949, newly elected President Theodor Heuss stood on the balcony to address crowds gathered below. French President Charles de Gaulle spoke from the steps in 1962, US President John F. Kennedy arrived in 1963, and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev visited in 1989.

In 1978, routine municipal administration moved to the larger Stadthaus in Nordstadt, leaving the Old Town Hall as the representative office for the Lord Mayor. Following a major renovation between 2010 and 2011, the structure remains the civic anchor of the market square.