| City Hall | |
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Viewed from Tower Bridge |
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Location of City Hall in Central London
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| General information | |
| Location | Southwark, London, England |
| Address | 110 The Queens Walk, LONDON, SE1 2AA |
| Coordinates | |
| Current tenants | Greater London Authority |
| Completed | 2002 |
| Design and construction | |
| Owner | More London Development Ltd. |
| Architect | Norman Foster |
| Architecture firm | Foster and Partners |
| Structural engineer | Arup |
| Website | |
| www.london.gov.uk/city_hall | |
City Hall is the headquarters of the Greater London Authority (GLA) which comprises the Mayor of London and London Assembly. It is located in Southwark, on the south bank of the River Thames near Tower Bridge. It was designed by Norman Foster and opened in July 2002, two years after the Greater London Authority was created.
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City Hall was constructed at a cost of £65 million [1] on a site formerly occupied by wharves serving the Pool of London. The building does not belong to the GLA but is leased under a 25-year rent.[2] 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. However, in June 2011 Mayor Boris Johnson announced that for the Olympic Year 2012 the building would be called 'London House', leading to speculation that this name may be retained thereafter.
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 its conversion into, among other things, a luxury hotel, amusement arcade and aquarium.
The building has an unusual, bulbous shape, purportedly intended to reduce its surface area and thus improve energy efficiency, although energy use measurements have shown this building to be fairly inefficient in terms of energy use. [3]. It has been compared variously to Darth Vader's helmet, a misshapen egg, a woodlouse and a motorcycle helmet. Former mayor Ken Livingstone referred to it as a "glass testicle",[4][5] while the present mayor, Boris Johnson, has referred to it as "The Glass Gonad"[6] and 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 in conventional terms but derives its shape from a modified sphere.
A 500-metre (1,640 ft) 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.
The building is located on the River Thames in the London Borough of Southwark. 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 is not, however, part of the GLA's jurisdiction. The Scoop and surrounding landscape were designed by Townshend Landscape Architects. The nearest London Underground and National Rail station is London Bridge.
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