page_title: Los Angeles City Hall
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Los Angeles City Hall / History
caption_attribution_description: The Los Angeles City Hall. View West facade, entrance stairs, and entry courtyard. Date In 1931, shortly after its completion Original caption "New Los Angeles City Hall which rises 28 stories and dominates the Civic Center" Overland Monthly; August-September 1931 issue.
context_page_description: Los Angeles City Hall, completed in 1928, is the center of the government of the city of Los Angeles, California, and houses the mayor's office and the meeting chambers and offices of the Los Angeles City Council. It is located in the Civic Center district of downtown Los Angeles in the city block bounded by Main, Temple, First, and Spring streets, which was the heart of the city's central business district during the 1880s and 1890s.
context_section_description: The building was designed by John Parkinson, John C. Austin, and Albert C. Martin, Sr., and was completed in 1928.  Dedication ceremonies were held on April 26, 1928. It has 32 floors and, at 454 feet (138 m) high, is the tallest base-isolated structure in the world, having undergone a seismic retrofit from 1998 to 2001 so that the building will sustain minimal damage and remain functional after a magnitude 8.2 earthquake. The concrete in its tower was made with sand from each of California's 58 counties and water from its 21 historical missions. City Hall's distinctive tower was based on the shape of the Mausoleum of Mausolus, and shows the influence of the Los Angeles Public Library, completed shortly before the structure was begun. An image of City Hall has been on Los Angeles Police Department badges since 1940.
  To keep the city's architecture harmonious, prior to the late 1950s the Charter of the City of Los Angeles did not permit any portion of any building other than a purely decorative tower to be more than 150 ft (46 m). Therefore, from its completion in 1928 until 1964, the City Hall was the tallest building in Los Angeles, and shared the skyline with only a few structures having decorative towers, including the Richfield Tower and the Eastern Columbia Building.
  City Hall has an observation deck, free to the public and open Monday through Friday during business hours. The peak of the pyramid at the top of the building is an airplane beacon named in honor of Colonel Charles A. Lindbergh, the Lindbergh Beacon. Circa 1939, there was an art gallery, in Room 351 on the third floor, that exhibited paintings by California artists.
  The building was designated a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument in 1976.
  In 1998 the building was closed during a total $135 million refurbishment which also included upgrading it so it could withstand a magnitude 8.2 earthquake including permitting it to sway in a quake.
caption: 1931 photograph of then new City Hall with the now-demolished 10-story International Savings Bank to the immediate left.[6]
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