City Hall-County Building
- Architect
- Holabird and Roche
- Year
- 1905
- Style
- Neoclassical
- City
- Chicago, IL
The City Hall-County Building, completed in 1905 to a design by Holabird and Roche in the Neoclassical style, occupies the full block bounded by Randolph, Washington, Clark, and LaSalle Streets. It is the seventh building to serve as Chicago's city hall and the fourth built on this site, which has held the seat of city and county government since 1853, apart from the years after the Great Chicago Fire destroyed its predecessor in 1871.
the building
Two seats of government. The building physically divides its two governments: the west side, at 121 N. LaSalle St., holds the mayor's office, city clerk, city treasurer, and City Council chambers, while the east side, at 118 N. Clark St., holds Cook County offices and the County Board of Commissioners' chambers.
A colonnaded civic block. Holabird and Roche gave the building a massive colonnaded facade that dominates the full city block, a scale suited to a structure serving as the seventh building in the city's history to house its seat of government.
the style
Holabird and Roche designed the building in a Neoclassical, or classical revival, style, an idiom favored for major civic buildings of the era for its association with orderly, permanent government. The colonnades and symmetrical massing project institutional authority fitting a building shared by the city and county governments.
More on Neoclassicalsignificance
The City Hall-County Building was designated a Chicago Landmark on January 21, 1982. Its site has served as the seat of Chicago and Cook County government since 1853, interrupted only between 1871, when the Great Chicago Fire destroyed the previous building, and 1885.
nearby
- American National Bank Building
- Chicago Temple Building
- Daley Center
- One North LaSalle Building
- Chicago Stock Exchange Building
- James R. Thompson Center