Johannesburg City Hall, Edwardian Baroque municipal building in Central Business District, South Africa.
Johannesburg City Hall is an Edwardian Baroque building completed in 1914, with a colonnaded Ionic portico along Rissik Street and a central domed tower. Its two halves face different streets: municipal offices toward Rissik Street and the town hall toward Harrison Street. The exterior brick walls are clad in Flatpan Freestone from the Free State, and the entrance vestibule is finished in marble and mosaics.
A 1909 competition open only to South African resident architects produced Hawke and McKinlay's design; Mattheus Meischke won the construction tender in 1912 at £503,000. Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn, laid the cornerstone on 29 November 1910 on the eastern end of Market Square. The building opened to the public on 26 January 1915 and was formally opened on 7 April 1915 by Governor-General Lord Buxton. The Gauteng Provincial Legislature moved in on 21 October 1995.
The hall's pipe organ was built by Norman & Beard of Norwich to specifications by organist Alfred Hollins and assembled under Herbert Norman's supervision; it opened to the public on 4 March 1916 with an inaugural recital by Hollins. In the 1920s it carried Sunday-night recitals and Tuesday lunch-hour concerts, and was described as the largest organ on the African continent.
The Gauteng Provincial Legislature occupies the hall, so the interior is a working government building rather than a museum. The main entrance on Rissik Street is reached by granite steps through the colonnaded portico; the western doors on President Street face Beyers Naude Square and the City Library. The building opened to the public for two days in April 1915.
The organ built by Norman & Beard of Norwich was first heard on 4 March 1916, played by Alfred Hollins, who had drawn up its specifications. It was said to be the largest organ on the African continent and at one time the second largest in the Southern Hemisphere.
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