Philadelphia City Hall | Favorite Architecture

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Philadelphia City Hall is the seat of government for the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The building was constructed from 1871 to 1901 within Penn Square, in the middle of Center City. John McArthur Jr. and Thomas Ustick Walter designed the building in the Second Empire style. City Hall is a masonry building whose weight is borne by granite and brick walls up to 22 ft (6.7 m) thick. The principal exterior materials are limestone, granite, and marble. The final construction cost was $24 million,More info:wiki

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#10 City Hall will reopen Tuesday, following power outage,More info:philly

A power outage forced officials to close Philadelphia City Hall and all court operations midday Monday.

The outage occurred just before 1 p.m. when employees were sent home. Power was restored about an hour later, PECO spokesman Greg Smore said.

An underground cable that powers City Hall and other buildings in the area went down and a mechanism for switching over to a backup line failed, Smore said.

“This is just one of the lines that City Hall has to power the building,” Smore said. “They had an issue with their internal equipment that would make that switch, so our crews arrived on site and we were able to help make that transfer and restore power about an hour later.”

#9 Man posts video of climbing Philadelphia City Hall tower,More info:mcall

#8 City Hall,More info:visitphilly

An architectural treasure inside and out, City Hall is the largest municipal building in the United States, with over 14.5 acres of floor space.

Topped with an iconic statue of William Penn, the 548-foot tower is the tallest masonry structure in the world without a steel frame; it was the tallest building in Philadelphia until 1987.

The public rooms are among the most lavish in the city; the City Council Chamber, the Mayor’s Reception Room, Conversation Hall and the Supreme Court Room are the most ornate.

Visitors can join guided tours to learn about the building’s history and view the city from above from the open-air observation deck.

#7 Philadelphia City Hall,More info:Mike Whiter

#6 File:Philadelphia City Hall at night.jpg ,More info:wikimedia

#5 City issues RFP to revamp Philadelphia City Hall’s courtyard in 2017,More info:philly.curbed

Got an idea to make City Hall’s courtyard better? The city wants to hear about it.

The Mayor’s Fund of Philadelphia just issued a request for proposals (RFP) for local designers to “build an innovative, modular, multi-purpose platform” for the courtyard that will launch in June 2017. The short-term improvements should somehow highlight the city’s history with water.

Why H20? The city received a grant from Southwest Airlines Heart of the Community program, and intends to use it to shed light on the history of Philly’s water supply system and the city’s Green City, Clean Waters program.

To be clear, the revamp won’t necessarily be permanent. But it will aim to garner some more eyeballs and excitement on the long-term goals to redesign the courtyard, which have been floating around for a few years.

#4 Philadelphia City Hall ,More info:theconstitutional

In the center of Philadelphia sits a testament to Philadelphia’s grand ambition and the tallest masonry building in the world.

The History

When William Penn first planned the street grid of Philadelphia in 1682, the land on which Philadelphia’s City Hall now stands was called Centre Square and was designed to be the center of Philadelphia, not just geographically, but of city government as well. Early Philadelphians weren’t having it though; the Delaware River was the early center of Philadelphia’s economy and most people who came to Philadelphia settled very close to the river that makes up Philadelphia’s eastern border. The location of Philadelphia’s first City Hall reflected this reality as it was constructed on 2nd and Market Streets, within sight of the mighty Delaware.

Throughout the first century of Philadelphia’s existence, the edge of Philadelphia abutting the Delaware River grew into the center of the largest city in America; but populations grew very sparse just blocks away from the Delaware. In 1776 when Thomas Jefferson set out to leave the urban bustle of Philadelphia for peace and tranquility to write the Declaration of Independence, he was able to find it at 7th and Market Streets, just a few hundred yards away from Independence Hall! Philadelphia’s new City Hall (now known as Old City Hall) moved westward in 1791 (albeit only slightly) to the corner of 5th and Chestnut Streets. Old City Hall still stands today and is actually one of the stops on The Constitutional Walking Tour!

In the early 18th Century Philadelphia’s population began to explode and people finally began settling all over Philadelphia. Then in 1854, Philadelphia annexed the land of neighboring towns; greatly increasing the land area of the city and suddenly making Philadelphia only the second American city to surpass 500,000 people. Old City Hall was by this time woefully out of date and impractically small for a city of Philadelphia’s size and plans began to be made for the construction of a new city hall. The American Civil War delayed those plans until 1871 when construction began on Philadelphia’s City Hall. The chosen location for the grand new hall was Penn’s Centre Square. Finally, William Penn would get his wish; Centre Square was to become the center of Philadelphia’s government.