Everything about City Hall London totally explained
City Hall is the headquarters of the
Greater London Authority and the
Mayor of London. It stands on the south bank of the
River Thames near
Tower Bridge. Designed by
Norman Foster, it opened in July 2002.
The building has an unusual bulbous shape, intended to reduce its surface area and thus improve
energy efficiency. It has been compared variously to
Darth Vader's
helmet, a misshapen
egg, a human
scrotum, a
woodlouse or a
motorcycle helmet. Former mayor
Ken Livingstone referred to it as a "glass
testicle". The new mayor,
Boris Johnson has referred to it more politely as 'The Onion'. Its designers reportedly saw the building as a giant sphere hanging over the Thames, but opted for a more conventionally rooted building instead. It has no front or back on conventional terms but derives its shape from a modified sphere.
City Hall was constructed on a site formerly occupied by wharves serving the
Pool of London. The building doesn't belong to the GLA but is leased under a 25-year rent. It forms part of a larger development called
More London, including offices and shops. Next to City Hall is a sunken
amphitheatre called
The Scoop, which is used in the summer months for open-air performances; it's not, however, part of the GLA's jurisdiction.
A 500-metre (1,640 foot)
helical walkway, reminiscent of that in
New York's
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, ascends the full height of the building. At the top of the ten-story building is an exhibition and meeting space called "London's Living Room", with an open viewing deck which is occasionally open to the public. The walkway provides views of the interior of the building, and is intended to symbolise transparency; a similar device was used by Foster in his design for the rebuilt
Reichstag (parliament) in
Germany. In 2006 it was announced that solar
photovoltaic cells would be fitted to the building by the
London Climate Change Agency.
Despite the name, City Hall is neither located in nor does it serve a city (
as recognised by English constitutional law), often adding to the confusion of Greater London with the
City of London, whose headquarters is in the
Guildhall, north of the Thames. The predecessors of the Greater London Authority, namely the
Greater London Council and the
London County Council, had their headquarters at
County Hall, upstream on the
South Bank. Although County Hall's old council chamber is still intact, the building is unavailable for use by the GLA due to the building's conversion into, among other things, a luxury hotel, amusement arcade and aquarium.
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