With the design of the new town hall of Gronau, a city near the Dutch-German border, architect Harald Deilmann took a stand against what he called "unimaginative schematism": based on a triangular structure Deilmann designed a flexible and open building that is welcoming to both visitors and employees and connects rather than separates its different functions. In the planning stage the town hall was intended to house a restaurant, a city hall and a police station, options that would have suited the architect's intention to make the town hall a multifunctional large-scale structure. These plans never came to fruition.

In recent years the town hall has been surrounded by fierce criticism: in 2012 a survey revealed that a smaller new building would be more economical, a result that paired with the criticism of employees who were dissatisfied with the open-plan offices and certain structural flaws of the building. All discussions regarding demolition or building a new town hall came to a halt in 2016 when the building was awarded heritage status and plans were revealed that in the coming years it will undergo fundamental renovation.