City Hall (London)

City Hall in London is the headquarters of the Greater London Authority, and stands on the south bank of the River Thames near to Tower Bridge. It was designed by Norman Foster and opened in 2002. It has an unusual bulbous shape, intended to reduce the building's surface area and thus improve energy efficiency.

A spiral walkway, reminiscent of that in New York's Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, runs up and around the assembly chamber. At the top of the ten-storey building is an exhibition and meeting space called "London's Living Room", with an open viewing deck which is occasionally open to the public.

The term City Hall in British English does not have the American meaning of a building housing the municipal authority. The equivalent British term is Town Hall. Here, City Hall is the name of the building rather than a description of its function. Ironically, City Hall is not in the City of London, whose headquarters is in the Guildhall north of the Thames. The predecessors of the Greater London Authority, namely the Greater London Council and the London County Council had their headquarters at County Hall, upstream on the south bank.