Left: Herschel image (Hill et al. 2011) of RCW 36 and its surroundings (blue: PACS 70 μm, green: PACS 160 μm, red: SPIRE 250 μm). The cluster is located on a filamentary cloud structure that extends north to south; perpendicular to this ridge a bipolar nebula is seen. Note the ring-shaped structure in the center of this nebula. The dashed square denotes the region covered by Spitzer. Top right: Spitzer/IRAC image of RCW 36 and its surroundings (blue: 3.6 μm, green: 4.5 + 5.8 μm, red: 8.0 μm, logarithmic scale). The dashed square denotes the region covered by NTT/SOFI. Bottom right: NTT/SOFI broadband three-color image (blue: J, green: H, red: K_s). The region delimited by the solid red lines is covered by the VLT/SINFONI observations. The blue cross denotes the peak location of the 5 GHz radio continuum source (Walsh et al. 1998).