Town hall

In 2018, the Mainz City Council decided to renovate Mainz City Hall. In November 2019, the offices and units previously located in the town hall were relocated.

Symbol of democratic awareness

It is jokingly referred to as the "fox's den" (in reference to the mayor at the time of its construction, Jockel Fuchs) or the "civil servants' prison": Mainz City Hall is undoubtedly a distinctive building with its own unique design language.

Mainz had been without a city hall for five centuries until the Mainz City Council commissioned the renowned Danish firm Jacobsen and Weitling to design the new building in 1968.

"We believe (...) we have created a place of great value that will arouse public interest and perhaps also discussion. A debate about the pros and cons would already be a positive sign, because a building that no one talks about is usually not worth talking about," said Otto Weitling, one of the architects of Mainz City Hall, expressing his hopes and wishes in January 1974.

What was written in the construction documentation on the occasion of the town hall's opening still holds true today.

Town hall at a glance

Facts, figures and data

Historical

700 years after the construction of Mainz's first town hall in the Middle Ages, the Mainz City Council commissioned the renowned Danish firm Jacobsen and Weitling to design the new building following a Europe-wide competition. Mainz had been without a town hall for 500 years. That was about to change: the building was to be constructed on Halleplatz, now known as Jockel-Fuchs-Platz.

On July 21, 1972, the then mayor Jockel Fuchs and the builders celebrated the topping-out ceremony. On New Year's Eve 1973, the building was put into operation with a city council meeting.

The very next day, the carnival guards took over Rathausplatz, and during the following week of festivities, 50,000 Mainz residents stormed their new city hall.

Numerous guests of honor from the twin cities, the then Prime Minister of Rhineland-Palatinate, Helmut Kohl, the Mayor of Wiesbaden, Rudi Schmitt, and, to top it all off, Federal President Gustav Heinemann honored the new building with their visit. 600 employees moved into their offices.

Architect Arne Jacobsen did not live to see the building's inauguration. He had already passed away in 1971. In 2002, the year of his 100th birthday, the city hall received numerous requests to loan furniture from its collection for design exhibitions worldwide.

The Mainz town hall in the cityscape

No matter from which side the viewer is confronted with this powerful building, the town hall makes an impression. Coming from the Rhine bridge, it forms a modern counterpoint to the mighty structure of the thousand-year-old cathedral in the city's famous Rhine panorama.

From a bird's eye view, the unusual triangular floor plan, which can only be experienced from this perspective, is captivating. Coming from the "Am Brand" shopping center, pedestrians cross a bridge reserved for pedestrians to reach the wide town hall plateau, from which one of the most beautiful views of the Rhine river can be enjoyed.

Unsuspecting visitors are amazed by the modernity of the building in this prominent location in the two-thousand-year-old city and are often even more surprised when they learn that the city hall is already over four decades old. It is precisely these feelings that prove the quality of the architecture, which never seems boring without postmodern frills and historicizing ingredients.

It was a bold decision to place this modern building in harmony with the Electoral Palace, the State Chancellery, the armoury and the old facades of the 19th-century residential buildings, thus closing an urban gap left by the destruction of the town hall and the Halleplatz square in front of it during the Second World War. The intention was to open up the city to the river and, with the construction of the neighboring shopping center, to expand the city center.