Bensberg officially became a town in 1947, but did not have a representative town hall. In 1955, it was decided to build one. The chosen building site: the grounds of the so-called “Old Castle”.  In 1962, an architectural competition was held in which many renowned architects such as Oswald Mathias Ungers, Peter Poelzig and Gottfried Böhm took part. The latter won by convincing the jury with his design, in which he cleverly combined history and the present and integrated the existing wall remains and preserved towers into his new city hall building. Böhm added a brutalist fortress made of exposed concrete and staged glass surfaces to the existing historical structure. The architectural highlight is Böhm’s polygonal stair tower, in which the ribbon windows follow the ascent of the steps and the top of the tower ultimately forms a concrete mountain peak.

Phased fundamental renovation since about 2012.

Heritage protected since 1982 (last updated on June 20, 2024).