Anyone strolling through Elsterwerda will inevitably be drawn to this building at the corner of Hauptstraße and Friedrich-Jage-Straße. Not because it imposes itself – it doesn't – but because, in its quiet dignity, it exudes something that is perhaps best described by the old word "attitude."
The town hall stands there like an attentive observer. Not arrogant, not historically pompous. Rather: present. The façade, painted in soft green, and a gable that, with its baroque flourish, speaks of better times – or at least of times when things were still built with attention to detail. The small tower top with its weather vane seems almost playful, as if the building were saying: "I can manage – but I can also charm."
This was once an inn, later a post office; it is already mentioned in the town register of 1711. You can picture it: horses at the gate, travelers with heavy bags, the smell of warm bread and cold squid – the latter perhaps only in your imagination. And today? It's not carriages that arrive here anymore, but rather requests, worries, ideas.
The windows sometimes glow late into the day. Perhaps because someone still sits here who cares. Or because the old ghost of the building says: "Just because the day is over doesn't mean the story ends." Seen this way, the town hall is not a place of power, but one that exists for the city. One of those buildings that doesn't ask who you are – but what you need.