Durban's City Hall

Durban’s City Hall was designed by Stanley Hudson in Modern Renaissance style and was completed in 1910. It closely resembles the Belfast City Hall and was built by Messrs. Cornelius and Hollis at a cost of £237,945. It measures over 50m from street level to the top of the dome and is of stone up to the first cornice and, thereafter, cement and plaster. The stone was obtained from a quarry in Greytown and, when repairs were done in 1957, stone from the same quarry was used.

An amusing legend attached to the City Hall is that the nearly naked cherubs adorning it were created using builder Jack Hollis’s infant son George as a model. George Hollis later became Mayor of Durban and may thus be the only Mayor ever to take office in a City Hall decorated with nude representations of himself.