The Reichstag building was constructed to house the Reichstag, parliament of the German Empire. It was opened in 1894 and housed the Reichstag until 1933, when it was severely damaged in a fire. Hitler used the fire as an excuse to suspend most rights which had been gained in the 1919 constitution. With the Cold War, the building was physically within West Berlin, but only a few metres from the border of East Berlin, which ran around the back of the building and in 1961 was closed by the Berlin Wall. The building was severly damaged during the Battle of Berlin. In 1992, Norman Foster won an architectural contest for the reconstruction of the building. Before reconstruction began, the Reichstag was wrapped by the Bulgarian-American artist Christo and his wife Jeanne-Claude in 1995. The new building includes Lord Foster's glass dome pictured elsewhere. It was a rainy day when I took this picture, so I didn't walk to the front.