German unification in 1871 created an empire whose parliament initially lacked a purpose-built national home. After competitions and political delays, Paul Wallot designed a monumental neo-Renaissance building on the edge of Berlin's Tiergarten. Construction began in 1884, and Emperor Wilhelm II opened the Reichstag in 1894. Stone façades, corner towers representing the federal kingdoms, a large plenary chamber, and a steel-and-glass cupola expressed unity and technological confidence. The inscription Dem deutschen Volke, meaning To the German People, was added only in 1916 during the First World War.

The empire's parliament exercised limited authority beside the emperor and chancellor, but the building became central during revolution in November 1918, when Philipp Scheidemann proclaimed a republic from a window. It then housed the Weimar Republic's Reichstag. Fire gutted the plenary chamber and cupola on 27 February 1933. The Nazi government exploited the crisis to suspend civil liberties and persecute opponents, although responsibility for the fire remains debated. Parliament no longer functioned there, and wartime bombing and fighting in 1945 inflicted extensive additional damage.

The ruined structure stood close to the Berlin Wall in West Berlin. Paul Baumgarten's reconstruction, completed in the 1960s, removed the damaged dome, simplified ornament, and created meeting and exhibition spaces rather than a regular parliamentary chamber because Bonn was West Germany's capital. Artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude wrapped the building in fabric for two weeks in 1995, just before another transformation began. Their temporary work highlighted the Reichstag's contested shell while reunified Germany prepared to return its federal parliament and government to Berlin.

Norman Foster's project retained Wallot's exterior and surviving scars while rebuilding the interior around a modern plenary chamber. The new glass dome, completed for the Bundestag's move in 1999, uses ramps, mirrors, daylight, and public views to symbolize transparency and place visitors physically above the chamber. Foster's work was a major reconstruction, not restoration of Wallot's original cupola or prewar interiors. Soviet soldiers' graffiti was deliberately preserved in selected areas, and contemporary art joined exposed historic masonry, making damage and political rupture part of the building's interpretation.

The Reichstag remains the active seat of the German Bundestag rather than a conventional museum. Parliamentary business, security, maintenance, and special events determine access. The rooftop terrace and dome are generally free but require advance registration and identification, and closures occur periodically. Guided tours and plenary visits follow separate schedules. The exterior retains substantial 1894 fabric, but the interior is principally Foster's late twentieth-century design incorporating remnants from several periods. That layering allows the building to embody empire, fragile democracy, dictatorship, division, reunification, and contemporary parliamentary government without pretending those eras formed a seamless history.