Today, the functions of the Freiburg city halls are scattered throughout the city in sixteen separate buildings. But the first of them — the “old city hall” — was first mentioned in the fourteenth century. Since that time, the building itself has been altered many times, and eventually connected to the “new city hall” building — once a pair of private houses. The old city hall was, at different times, covered with murals on the exterior walls; but the depredations of climate led the town council to abandon the effort and  given the building a bold, brick-colored paint.

The elaborate interior of the old city hall was completely destroyed in World War II, and has been replaced by modern decor. The courtroom, however — the oldest in the building, originally dating from at least the early fourteenth century (and possibly earlier), has been reconstructed to something like its appearance in the sixteenth century: