City Hall Norwich

City Hall on the outside is handsome enough to claim a rightful place in the civic history of Norwich. It is a unique landmark that is full of a splendid kind of craftsmanship and a strange Nordic symbolism. Inside it is glum!

Even outside it is an unresolved 'tip' at the back. Few recognise or even see the figures by Alfred Hardiman carved on the outside back wall of the Council Chamber - lost as they are in a scene of a seemingly permanent squalor that for years has been the situation behind. 'Behind' was never completed and in recent years the clearance of dangerous structures has done nothing to help the appearance of anything.
It is the available space that offers the key to muchbetter things.
Fundamentally though, City Hall is in quite the right place for our local governance and it would be iniquitous if Norwich were to do a GLC and move out for the building to become a hotel or some such.
It does require something of a transformation to make it into an efficient enclosure for a proper modern office: the same narrow floor plans that generate long perimeters, excessive corridors and too many levels, also create impressive loss of heat with a corresponding expensive consumption of energy.  And this is to say nothing of staff time wasted and communication made difficult by the location of office floors as a sort of vertical sandwich with the civic suite as a dividing filling between offices.
One day, when other pressing issues allow, it will be recognised that a modest investment would save, (at 1970 costs and values) well over £1m every year in clearly definable economies and probably nearer £2/annum should full benefit be taken of available energy efficiencies.  Money issues apart, a pleasant and efficient working environment is a real possibility, one that is far more welcoming to the visiting citizen.
A re-modelling of this building is feasible that can create a better more functional principal public entrance at a street level in St Giles Street. The ceremonial and civic portico that overlooks the market place could continue to serve those purposes – and share these functions with a much improved outside and civic space.
These ideas for the better use of City Hall formed the subject of an exhibition and talks I presented on completion of the Norwich Market in 2007.