The Reception Hall

From an architectural point of view the appearance of the reception hall represented Hitler’s personal taste. The Atelier Troost had been erecting buildings for Hitler since before 1933. For these buildings Troost had developed an architectural language, based on the classical, which today is considered to be typical of the National Socialist era. But the appearance of the Reception Hall shows that there never was a typical National Socialist architectural style. Instead, classical elements were used and combined in whatever manner best suited their purposes. Consequently, with the Reception Hall, Leonard Gall designed a building which seems, from its exterior appearance, more like a rural mansion than an official building of the German government. With its wall lamps, shutters and plastered façades, the building could have been a summer house on one of the Brandenburg lakes.