Boston City Hall

About

Boston City Hall is the seat of city government of Boston, Massachusetts, United States. Surrounded by City Hall Plaza in the Government Center section of Downtown Boston, it includes the offices of the Mayor and the City Council. The building was designed by the architecture firms Kallmann McKinnell & Knowles (KMK) and Campbell, Aldrich & Nulty, with LeMessurier Consultants as engineers. A major brutalist-style building, City Hall is a designated Boston Landmark.

City Hall was proposed in 1956 as part of the Government Center development, following decades of efforts to replace Old City Hall. Acquiring the land and sufficient funding took half a decade, and KMK won a two-phase architectural design competition in 1962. Groundbreaking took place on September 18, 1963; the first occupants moved in during late 1967, and the building was decorated on February 11, 1969. In addition to governmental business, City Hall was used for a variety of events and exhibits. Over time, the building suffered from deferred maintenance, and Mayor Thomas Menino twice proposed replacing it in the 1990s and 2000s. City Hall underwent renovations starting in the 2010s.