Dallas City Hall

This beauty from I.M. Pei has some incredible history.

JFK's assassination turned the world against Dallas, and the city became known as the "City of Hate". Mayor Erik Jonsson made it a priority to reinvent the city's image, and one of his goals was to build a "city of beauty and functional fitness that embraces the quality of life for all its people."

Planning for the Dallas Municipal Center commenced in 1964 when the Dallas City Council appointed a Citizen's City Hall Committee of prominent citizens who settled on I.M. Pei to design the new facility. Construction began on June 26, 1972 and was completed in three phases. The City accepted the garage parking areas in November 1974; the Park Plaza in May 1976; and the building in December 1977.

The cost of design and construction of the building, the Park Plaza and the garage was over $70 million. Controversies arose over cost overruns (the original estimated cost was $42.2 million) and aesthetic issues (was the building too avant-garde?), though most problems were addressed and work moved on to completion. The world is better for it.