Palazzo San Giorgio, Art Nouveau town hall in Reggio Calabria, Italy.
Palazzo San Giorgio is an Art Nouveau town hall featuring two floors with a square floor plan, connected by an interior gallery that links two major streets. The ground floor showcases semicircular arched windows, and a protruding central tower marks the main entrance on Piazza Italia.
The previous town hall was destroyed in the 1908 earthquake. Palermo architect Ernesto Basile drew up the replacement, built from 1918 by the Rome firm G. Vianini and finished in 1921. Mayor Giuseppe Valentino ordered it into use on 29 December 1921; the official inauguration came on 27 April 1922, when King Vittorio Emanuele III arrived at Reggio aboard the destroyer Falco. From 1970 to 2000 it housed the offices and assembly hall of the Calabrian regional council.
The first floor holds the Sala dei Lampadari, the Sala del Sindaco, the Sala della Giunta Municipale and the Sala del Consiglio, all with Art Nouveau decoration. The building also housed part of the civic art collection, now in Reggio Calabria's Pinacoteca civica: 250 paintings from the early 1800s to the early 1900s, many from the Neapolitan school, plus works by Calabrian artists such as Rubens Santoro and Francesco Jerace.
The building functions as the municipal administrative center and offers access from Piazza Italia through the central entrance. Keep in mind that some interior areas remain active government offices, so visitor access may be limited to specific sections.
The building houses artworks by painters from Calabria, Sicily, and Naples that reveal how different southern Italian artistic schools influenced one another. This collection shows surprising cross-regional connections that developed during the early 1900s.
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