Basel joined the Swiss Confederation in 1501, and in 1503 the Grand Council resolved to build a new town hall beside the Palace of the Lords to commemorate this. The new building was constructed from 1504 to 1514. The original Palace of the Lords was raised in height between 1517 and 1521, when the Great Council Chamber was also established.
The palace had replaced the Richthaus, which was destroyed in the 1356 Basel earthquake. The article does not name an architect or a style. The facade is red sandstone, with the coats of arms of the cantons on the battlements, and there is an interior courtyard.
Hans Holbein the Younger painted frescoes there in 1522, now lost, with fragments in the Kunstmuseum. The building houses the Cantonal Parliament and the Cantonal Government.
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