Reichstag Building

The Reichstag building on Platz der Republik in central Berlin opened in 1894 as the seat of the German Imperial parliament, designed by Paul Wallot in a historicist style with a dedication reading "Dem Deutschen Volke" (To the German People) added above the entrance in 1916. On 27 February 1933 a fire gutted the plenary chamber; the Nazi regime blamed communists and used the Reichstag Fire Decree that followed to suspend civil liberties and consolidate power. The building was heavily damaged in the 1945 Battle of Berlin, and Soviet soldiers photographed raising a flag over its ruins became one of the war's most reproduced images. It stood largely unused through the Cold War, sitting just west of the Berlin Wall, before restoration began after reunification. British architect Norman Foster redesigned the building in the 1990s, adding the now-iconic glass cupola that allows the public to look down into the working plenary chamber below, a deliberate architectural statement about government transparency. Visitors ascend a spiral ramp inside the dome past an audio guide describing the surrounding cityscape and the building's history, with sightlines onto the Tiergarten, the Spree river, and central Berlin landmarks. The plenary chamber itself retains graffiti left by Soviet soldiers in 1945, preserved behind glass in a corridor as a deliberate reminder of the building's history. The Bundestag has sat here since 1999, making the Reichstag the only Cold War-era ruin in central Berlin fully restored to its original governmental function.