Leipzig's New Town Hall is a huge piece of civic theatre, completed in 1905 on the site of the old Pleissenburg castle. Its pale stone mass and 114.7-metre tower deliberately keep something of a fortress silhouette, as if the modern city administration wanted to inherit the authority of the castle it replaced.
Even if you only see it from outside, walk around the building rather than treating it as a single facade. The scale, courtyards, tower, and sculptural detail are a useful counterpoint to the older Markt and Thomaskirche area. The Goerdeler memorial nearby adds a sober note to the building's 20th-century history.