Visiting the Reichstag Posted on January 21st, 2015 by Evan Larson

Today we visited the home of the German Parliament, the Reichstag.

At first glance the building looks very old but because of the turmoil in the area the building has been renovated and changed quite often although it still keeps some of the older design styles. The building also has contributions from many different artists from many different countries, all brought together for the German people just as it says on the front facade.

Surprisingly, one of the artists was actually the soldiers of the Russian army. A few of the walls of the building have sections of the original walls which include the graffiti written by Russian soldiers that had arrived in Berlin after the Battle of Berlin. All of the messages are benign, like “I was here” or just the name of the soldier and the path they took to get to Berlin.

Another really cool feature is the this hall of mailboxes which was designed by a french artist and includes a mailbox for every democratically elected official in German history. The hall also contains officials such as Hitler and Goebbels because they were democratically elected but they often have to repair the box because people visiting will often punch and kick their boxes.

The next area we visited was the actual parliament floor which was very impressive, the parliament has over 600 members of various backgrounds. The eagle was moved from the previous capital in Bonn and has another eagle on its backside that was designed by the person who designed the building.

Finally, the most iconic part of the Reichstag is the dome that lies directly above the parliament floor. It is meant to symbolize the German people watching over the parliament they elected and making sure they do the right thing. The dome also collects rain water, which goes into the buildings plumbing system. It also acts as an exhaust for hot air from the air conditioning system.