City Hall, Dallas

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Dallas City Hall is an unusual inverted pyramid-style building and one of the most distinctive structures in Dallas. Construction began in 1972 and was completed in 1978. There are 7 floors above ground and 2 floors below.

The building itself takes up 691,000 sqft and sits on a 7 acre plaza which contains some Henry Moore sculptures and is the site for numerous outdoor festivals and special events.

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The design is quite amazing. It uses natural light to cast images of the officers badge numbers which are carved out of the stainless steel canopy above to reflect onto the pavement below. Obviously the numbers are stronger on a sunny day.

The structure itself takes in 20,000 lbs of stainless steel. On another surface there are the officers names, badge numbers, date of death and age at the time of their death. Apparently the plaza surface also contains sections of the actual streets where the officers fell.

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This is a memorial which is dedicated to honour Police Officers from Dallas who have fallen in the line of duty. Since the forming of the Dallas Police Department in 1891, more than 70 officers have died in the line of duty and this is truly a unique memorial to them.

We drove by this building on my city tour in 1997. The guide had something to say about the problems with this construction but I don't remember what.

The Dallas City Hall was dedicated in the late 1977, and covers seventeen acres of downtown. The six acre plaza in front of the building is has a large ornamental reflecting pool, three eight-story-high flagpoles and a three-part Henry Moore’s sculpture. You can see the pool and the flagpoles from Reunion Tower (and in the photo).

The City Hall houses the Mayor’s offices, the Council chamber, emergency services, public utilities, City attorney’s office, management and data services of the city.

City Hall in plan is a long rectangular building, which is essentially a right triangle turned with one of its points down. The first floor is relatively small in plan with each floor above being larger than the one below. The north wall slopes outward, with large areas of glass. The south facade also has a considerable amount of glass with the east and west sides of the building being mostly concrete.

Dallas City Hall is not any ordinary style of building, its long rectangular sloping look was created by I.M. Pei in 1972. You almost feel like it is going to fall over, but it is all a very clever optical ullusion.
It has been described as a right triangle turned with one of its points down.
Each floor is 9ft wider than the one beneath it. A large pool sits out in front of City Hall, along with 3 large flag poles and an unusual bronze sculpture named 'Dallas Piece'.