The
Municipal Building was planned and designed for the Municipal Commission by the municipal architect S. D. Meadows, and then by Alexander Gordon, who took over the position in 1925. The
London construction firm Perry and Co. (Overseas) Ltd. began construction in 1926 and it was completed in 1929. By April, the Municipal Commission had moved into its new home.
Sir Hugh Clifford, the
Governor of the Straits Settlements, then officially opened the new Municipal Building on 23 July 1929. During the
Second World War, when the
Japanese occupied Singapore, they managed
civic issues from the Municipal Building.
Political affairs were already being conducted in the building. In 1943, the leader of the
Indian National Army,
Subhas Chandra Bose, rallied for Japanese support to help
India be independent of British rule at the Municipal Building. British
prisoners-of-war were rounded up in front of the building to march to POW camps such as
Changi Prison and Selarang. On 12 September 1945, the
Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) official
Seishirō Itagaki surrendered to
Lord Louis Mountbatten in the building to end the Second World War in Singapore, 9 days after the surrender was signed. In 1951, it was renamed to its present name
City Hall to mark the town of Singapore being granted city status by
King George VI, ==See also==