Design
The building was designed according to the Italian Renaissance style, symmetrical and formal. It has three floors and a partial basement. The total cost of the project including furniture, fitout and furnishing was ₤1,000,000.
Brisbane City Hall has an imposing 70 m clock tower (rising 91 m above ground level), based on the design of the St Mark's Campanile in Venice, Italy. Above the main entrance is a bronze awning and the doors are also made of bronze. Lions heads are found above these columns. The columns supporting the tympanum are of the Corinthian order while the columns extending on either side are of the Ionic order.
The four clock faces on each side of the tower are the largest in Australia. The clock has Westminster Chimes, which sound on the quarter hour, and can be heard from the Queen St Mall and, at times, in the surrounding suburbs. Above the clocks is an observation platform, open to the public and accessible by lift between 10am and 3pm seven days a week, free. For many years this afforded spectacular views of Brisbane, but since the relaxation of height limits for surrounding buildings in the late 1960s, the view is now somewhat restricted.
The centre of City Hall features a stunning auditorium, based on the Pantheon, Rome, and several smaller reception rooms. The auditorium is a large circular hall that can seat up to 2,500 people and is covered by a large copper dome. When originally built it was intended that the building would house most of the Council's administrative offices, Aldermen's (councillors') offices, the Council Chamber, a public library and several reception rooms, in addition to the auditorium. As the role of local government increased in the 1950s and 1960s, the reception rooms, hallways and side entrance vestibules (in Adelaide and Ann Streets) were converted to office space. Additional offices were constructed on the roof and in the basement.
Read more about this topic: Brisbane City Hall
Famous quotes containing the word design:
“We find that Good and Evil happen alike to all Men on this Side of the Grave; and as the principle Design of Tragedy is to raise Commiseration and Terror in the Minds of the Audience, we shall defeat this great End, if we always make Virtue and Innocence happy and successful.”
—Joseph Addison (1672–1719)
“The reason American cars don’t sell anymore is that they have forgotten how to design the American Dream. What does it matter if you buy a car today or six months from now, because cars are not beautiful. That’s why the American auto industry is in trouble: no design, no desire.”
—Karl Lagerfeld (b. 1938)
“For I choose that my remembrances of him should be pleasing, affecting, religious. I will love him as a glorified friend, after the free way of friendship, and not pay him a stiff sign of respect, as men do to those whom they fear. A passage read from his discourses, a moving provocation to works like his, any act or meeting which tends to awaken a pure thought, a flow of love, an original design of virtue, I call a worthy, a true commemoration.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)