Berlin's Rotes Rathaus gets its name from its red brick facade, though as one tour guide drily notes, it could just as easily refer to the political leanings of the mayors who have worked inside. The double meaning was not lost on Berliners during the Cold War, when the building sat in the Soviet sector and "Rotes Rathaus" became shorthand for the East Berlin government itself.

Built between 1861 and 1869, the design borrowed from the Old Town Hall of Toruń in Poland and the cathedral tower of Laon in France. A terracotta frieze wraps around the first floor, its 36 panels tracing Berlin's history from the 12th century to 1871. At the entrance, two statues depict the Trümmerfrau: the women who cleared the city's rubble after the war, since most of the men were dead or imprisoned.

VoiceMap's self-guided audio tours connect the building to its neighbourhood, tracing how this corner of Berlin looked before the bombs, and what was found underneath it during recent excavations.