Together with St. Nicholas´ Church, the City Hall facade forms one of the city’s most splendid sights in Stralsund. The complex, originally composed of two long parallel wings, was originally used as a place for merchants to trade, with small shops and stalls on both sides of the inner courtyard as well as in the 'Butter Passage' that led through the City Hall from Ossenreyerstrasse to the former main entrance of St. Nicholas´ Church. The coats of arms of Lueneburg and Bremen on the eastern side and Hamburg, Luebeck, Wismar, Rostock, Stralsund and Gerifswald on the northern are reminders of the once powerful Hanseatic League. The City Hall was comprehensively restored between 2001 and 2011, and it is from here that the city is still ruled today.
References:The Church of St Donatus name refers to Donatus of Zadar, who began construction on this church in the 9th century and ended it on the northeastern part of the Roman forum. It is the largest Pre-Romanesque building in Croatia.
The beginning of the building of the church was placed to the second half of the 8th century, and it is supposed to have been completed in the 9th century. The Zadar bishop and diplomat Donat (8th and 9th centuries) is credited with the building of the church. He led the representations of the Dalmatian cities to Constantinople and Charles the Great, which is why this church bears slight resemblance to Charlemagne's court chapels, especially the one in Aachen, and also to the Basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna. It belongs to the Pre-Romanesque architectural period.
The circular church, formerly domed, is 27 m high and is characterised by simplicity and technical primitivism.