All over the world people complain of City Hall and the fools within. But here's a hats off to the builders of these old palaces, to the architects who realized that City Hall had to say something about gravity, importance and permanence. I recently switched jobs and moved into an older part of downtown Sacramento. All around my new location there's pretty good taste, which you will see more of in weeks and months to come.
This is Sacramento's old City Hall. I work in the decade-old California EPA building behind it. Here are some closeups of the design work I walk past each morning after leaving the #52 commuter bus and walking east up I Street. It's inspiring, especially in the early morning fall light just after sunrise. It's a bit like my memories of Rome, when I visited my uncle Norbert in the late 1970s and returned to work at a small newspaper in the early 1980s (Proving it does work to pitch a few coins into the Fountain of Trevi).
Former legislative staffer Dan Flynn, in "Inside Guide to Sacramento," his great architectural guide to California's capital, writes of the the 1911 City Hall building at 915 I St.: "The building's Beaux Arts style reflects the City Beautiful sentiments of the early 20th Century. The City Beautiful movement called for dignified civic buildings that were carefully positioned to provide striking vistas. The movement expressed the idealism of municipal government reformers during the Progressive era."
This is Sacramento's old City Hall. I work in the decade-old California EPA building behind it. Here are some closeups of the design work I walk past each morning after leaving the #52 commuter bus and walking east up I Street. It's inspiring, especially in the early morning fall light just after sunrise. It's a bit like my memories of Rome, when I visited my uncle Norbert in the late 1970s and returned to work at a small newspaper in the early 1980s (Proving it does work to pitch a few coins into the Fountain of Trevi).
Former legislative staffer Dan Flynn, in "Inside Guide to Sacramento," his great architectural guide to California's capital, writes of the the 1911 City Hall building at 915 I St.: "The building's Beaux Arts style reflects the City Beautiful sentiments of the early 20th Century. The City Beautiful movement called for dignified civic buildings that were carefully positioned to provide striking vistas. The movement expressed the idealism of municipal government reformers during the Progressive era."
The architect was Rudolph Herold of Sacramento. A 2005 local history account provides context for why a city built on the fast growth and frequent squalor of the Gold Rush wanted to aim higher.
(See Page 3 for 1911 City Hall portion).
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