City Hall, Bristol

The building was commissioned to replace the Old Council House. The foundation stone was laid in 1935, and it was structurally complete by 1939 when the Second World War stopped further work. The council published a commemorative booklet about the building at the same time. It was designed by Vincent Harris in a Neo-Georgian style, with a concrete frame clad with very wide, thin bricks, with Portland stone dressings and a steep leaded hipped roof. The end pavilions are topped by gilded unicorns. The building was originally known as the Council House, but was renamed City Hall by George Ferguson, CBE, the Mayor of Bristol, on his first day in office on 19 November 2012. ==Features==

The ceiling of the council chamber was designed by John Armstrong (1893–1973) and depicts buildings in Bristol at the edge and the centre details sailing ships from different periods of Bristol history. The four corners show the allegorical figures of Enterprise, Wisdom, Industry and Navigation. The ceiling in the Conference Room is by Sir Walter Thomas Monnington (1902–1976) on the theme of molecular and atomic fusion. In 2005 a bust of Tony Benn, the famous Labour Party politician and the Member of Parliament for the former Bristol South East constituency from 1950 to 1960, and again from 1963 to 1983, was unveiled by Benn himself in the building's foyer. ==Environmental aspects==

Refurbishment of the electrical and heating systems have incorporated the use of rainwater recycling for flushing toilets and an air-conditioning system that will discharge excess heat into the surrounding water filled moat rather than expelling it into the atmosphere. ==In popular culture==

• One of the building's gilded unicorns appears in the opening credits of the first and fifth series of the television series Skins. • One of the unicorns also features in a hologram on the latest edition of the £B10 banknote of the Bristol Pound. ==See also==