Rathaus – the Town Hall
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Even though it is not – as is often the case in other towns – near the geographic centre of town, Hof’s town hall has the ideal location. Together with St Michael’s Church it attracts the admiring gazes of visitors. In fact, strictly speaking, the two buildings form a single entity in spite of the fact that they are separated from each other by the wide Ludwigstraße. It is a friendly town hall with a façade painted in two colours and a slender tower, which however has often changed appearance over the centuries.
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In 1562 the old town hall was demolished because the town council wanted to improve the looks of Hof. The new Renaissance-style building was planned by the famous architect Nickel Hofmann from Halle. This town hall kept its original shape in spite of being gutted by fire in 1625. The gradual reconstruction was only possible after the Thirty Years’ War and was carried out in the baroque style. In 1690 the tower was destroyed by fire, after which its appearance was altered: it was heightened with the addition of a bell tower and got an ambulatory platform, from which you can still enjoy a wonderful view of the town. The Great Fire of 1823 broke out very near the town hall and all that remained of the building were the outside walls and the vaults. These were preserved during reconstruction, although the style changed once again, with architect Georg Erhard Saher opting for neo-gothic decorations. The Hof town hall even served as a model for the town hall in the Thuringian town of Weimar, which however has even richer ornamentations. In his attempts to transform Nickel Hofmann’s Renaissance town hall into a neo-gothic edifice, Saher was not content merely with the horizontal lines which stressed the crenellated tops of the tower and the building itself so he had the wall surfaces profusely decorated with gothic ornaments.
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After the Second World War renovation was essential, in the course of which the neo-gothic crenellation disappeared. The reason for this was that the gutter behind it could often not cope with the rain water and so the ends of the roof beams and rafters were rotten. To save costs, the two oriels and the tower were given rounded roofs. At the same time the large room on the top floor was turned into an assembly hall for town council meetings.
During the summer months, visitors can mount the tower. The key is available at the information desk inside the town hall or at the tourist information office.
On the eastern side of the town hall, Ludwigstraße presents a sight to see: a line of magnificent houses from the Biedermeier period.
