Sydney City Hall
By Gregor Gosciniak

16 September 2007: The City Hall of Sydney, Australia, is a strikingly beautiful nineteenth-century building. It houses the Lord Mayor’s Office, the Council Chamber, the superb Centennial Hall and its fine reception rooms, as well as the offices of the city’s elected councillors. It was completed 120 years ago and is possibly the city’s only non-religious building to retain its original function and interiors.

But its history was turbulent. In those days the City Fathers sought as much independence as they could possibly get, which was reflected in a collective desire to build their own City Hall. It took decades of negotiation until finally they were able to secure a land grant from the Crown in the former commercial centre of the city. It came as no surprise that the site had to be as remote as possible from the colonial Government House in Macquarie Street.

The plot of land they were able to use was the cemetery of the old St. Andrew's Cathedral. This involved total exhumation and then reburial at cemeteries all over Sydney. A competition was held for the design of the building, and the winner was an obscure architect from Tasmania, Mr J H Willson. The completed building had a large covered entrance for vehicles leading into a courtyard, with its own ring road inside a stone and iron palisade. Unfortunately, this area was destabilised in 1934 during tunnelling for the underground railway and this formal entry had to be demolished.

As a landmark, the tower by the Bradridge brothers was second in scale to Barnet's tower on the General Post Office in Martin Place, while no building to the south or west was taller. City Hall includes a vestibule open to the public, designed by Albert Bond, the City Architect of the time. The vestibule was used as a meeting room before the much larger Centennial Hall was built. The vestibule has elaborately decorated surfaces in plasterwork with stained-glass lanterns and cast metal plaques commemorating official Royal visits to the city.

Centennial Hall was designed by Charles Sapsford and was known at the time as the Great Hall. It was in fact an architectural masterpiece involving a detailed and beautifully structured roof system to meet the span. The ceilings are lined with an early usage of the so-called Wunderlich metal panel system, designed to overcome the fear of plaster panels falling down on the public from vibrations caused by the immense organ – which, incidentally, is still working.

Lord Mayor and Chair of Central Sydney Planning Committee, Clover Moore, has her office in City Hall. She was elected in March, 2004, as the first popularly-elected female Lord Mayor of Sydney. She has been State Member for Bligh area since 1988. She is currently serving her fifth term in the Legislative Assembly of the New South Wales Parliament. Previously she served as a councillor on Sydney City and South Sydney Councils (1980-1987). She is an Independent who has never belonged to any political party.

Clover Moore is committed to working for a better environment than that which exists now. She stands for the protection of public lands and foreshores, and for progressive solutions to tough city problems, as well as political reform.