The Greatest Single Effort: Philadelphia's City Hall

摘要

ONCE THE 22 ft thick solid granite blocks had been laid to form the lower levels of Philadelphia's new municipal building, the stonemasons began erecting the building's six upper floors and covering the facades with more than $5.4 million worth of white marble. As the structure became increasingly ornate, local newspapers began to mock it. Some called it the marble elephant; others dubbed it the temple of the taxpayers. Although the project drew a great deal of criticism in 1871, when it began, the American Institute of Architects would later describe Philadelphia's City Hall as "perhaps the greatest single effort in late 19th-century American architecture."