Rathaus Wuppertal-Elberfeld, Renaissance Revival town hall in Wuppertal, Germany.
Rathaus Wuppertal-Elberfeld is a four-storey building with an attic, designed by the Berlin firm Reinhardt & Süßenguth in an eclectic style mixing Neo-Gothic and Neo-Renaissance elements. Its main façade faces the Neumarkt, while a wing shaped like a distorted U encloses a small inner courtyard to the northeast. The façade is clad in dark Londorfer basalt lava with sandstone detailing, and a roughly 79-metre tower with a copper-clad, patinated spire, slate clock faces on all four sides, and a small bell carillon rises above it.
Built from 1895 by the Berlin firm Reinhardt & Süßenguth, the town hall was inaugurated on 24 October 1900 by Kaiser Wilhelm II and his wife, the same day as the Wuppertal Schwebebahn and the Barmer Ruhmeshalle. It replaced the old Elberfeld town hall on Wall/Turmhof, which later housed the Von der Heydt Museum. After the 1929 merger creating Wuppertal, the council moved to Barmen's town hall and only social administration offices remained here.
The building's name recalls its origin as Elberfeld's town hall, a role it lost when Wuppertal was formed in 1929 and the council moved to Barmen's town hall. The glass painter Alexander Linnemann of Frankfurt made windows for it in 1900; four sketches and old photographs of these are kept in the Linnemann archive. Today it houses the main sections of the municipal social administration.
The building is at Neumarkt 10, at the north end of the Neumarkt and the close of the main pedestrian zone, between Willy-Brandt-Platz and Friedrichstraße, opposite the Lebensader Wupper sculpture. It has a barrier-free lift alongside a paternoster and three staircases. Today it houses the main sections of the municipal social administration, so interior access is limited to those services.
The tower's copper-clad spire has turned green with patina over the years, and its four slate clock faces are set on every side. A small peal of bells hangs in the tower. Inside, a paternoster lift still runs alongside three staircases and a wheelchair-accessible lift.
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