Houston City Hall
The Houston City Hall is the seat of the Municipality of Houston and listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
History
In the 1920s it became clear that the old, existing since 1841 Town Hall on the Old Market Square, a city founded by the founders and brothers John Kirby Allen and Augustus Chapman Allen plot, was no longer suitable for housing the city administration. 1927 began funding the Houston City Hall with the issuance of bonds. During the Great Depression the work of the Planning Commission for the construction came to a standstill. It was therefore requested by the jobs created in June 1933 as part of the New Deal Public Works Administration ( PWA), a public building program of the Federation, support job creation measures. On August 8, 1937, which was granted and the town received a grant from the Works Progress Administration. Shortly thereafter, by ordinance by the Planning Commission and Mayor RH Fonville the western part of George and Martha Hermann Square defined as a building.
Contrary to the objections Fonvilles, which its modern style is not liked, it was decided in October 1937, who was born in Austria Joseph Finger as architects. This has developed in Houston and the Texas State Hotel, now the 1940 Air Terminal Museum and other buildings. With the construction of the Bates Construction Company was commissioned. A lawsuit against the sale of bonds to finance the Houston City Hall was rejected by the Texas Supreme Court, however, delayed the start of construction.
The eleven-storey Houston City Hall was built From 7 March 1938 to July 1939 and is flanked by Tranquility Park and the Houston Public Library, in what is now Downtown Houston in the midst of several skyscrapers. The foundation stone was laid on October 1, 1938 and deposited a time capsule with a Bible, a copy of the city charter, three newspapers from Houston and the then annual report of the municipal auditor in him. The construction costs for the built of limestone Texan in the style of Art Deco City Hall amounted including the surrounding park design and interior decor, 1,670,000 U.S. dollars. The Houston City Hall was one of the first fully air-conditioned office buildings of the city. From the design produces the Houston City Hall resembles many other town halls that were built at this time in the southwestern United States.
On 3 December, the Mayor and members of the city council moved into new premises in the Houston City Hall. The old town hall was converted into a bus station and destroyed by fire in 1960.
On 18 September 1990, the Houston City Hall was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Architecture
The doors were made by aluminum die casting. In the latticework above the entrance Medals make aluminum the great lawgiver of world history is, among other things Akhenaten, Julius Caesar, Charles the Great and Thomas Jefferson. The lintel over the entrance to the foyer is a stone relief depicts two men who tame a wild horse. The walls of the foyer as well as the lobbies to the elevators, the housing wall is made of walnut wood, are covered with soft, light veined marble. A plaster relief on the ceiling of the foyer is the surrounded by the twelve signs of the zodiac western hemisphere with the five-pointed star of Houston's city flag dar. as the center of the leading from the basement to the third floor staircase has marble steps and a railing made of aluminum.
Before the Houston City Hall in the east is the George and Martha Hermann Square, in the center of which is a reflecting pool.