Oakland City Hall

Begun in 1911 and completed in 1914, Oakland’s fifth City Hall was funded by a $1.15 million bond issue passed in 1909. Designed in the Beaux Arts style by the New York firm of Palmer and Hornbostel after they won a national design competition, the building was meant to reflect Oakland’s emergence as a major metropolis. Reputedly the first city hall in the United States to unite the ceremonial functions of government with a modern high-rise office tower, it was for many years the tallest building in Oakland. Its three-tiered form earned it the nickname “Mayor Mott’s wedding cake.” A ten-story office tower and a 91-foot ornamental clock tower and cupola rise above a three-story base containing the council chambers, hearing rooms, and mayor’s offices. The steel-frame building is clad in white California granite, and its glazed terra cotta ornament depicts California’s agricultural abundance through grapes, olives, figs, and wheat. After being structurally damaged in the 1989 earthquake, it was completely renovated and retrofitted with an innovative base isolation system with assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and Mayor Elihu Harris rededicated it on September 15, 1995. It was designated an Oakland City Landmark in 1979 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.

Oakland, California · United States