Town hall

By convention, until the middle of the 19th century, a single large open chamber (or "hall") formed an integral part of the building housing the council and such other organs of government as supported it.

In some European countries, the town hall is the venue for the declaration of Christmas Peace, such as Turku and Porvoo in Finland[4] and Tartu in Estonia.

[5] As symbols of local government, city, and town halls have distinctive architecture, and the buildings may have great historical significance – for example the Guildhall, London.

City Hall buildings often serve citizens in accessing government functions as well as providing vital symbolic roles for their communities.

The term is also sometimes (but more rarely) used as a name in Commonwealth countries: for example, for the City Halls of Brisbane in Australia, and of Cardiff, Norwich and Bristol in the UK.

The development of the town hall as a setting for local governance meetings and decisions is historically related to the early cities in medieval Europe.

[1] The town hall concept of democracy was developed prolifically in northern Italy where several merchant cities entered into the allegiance of the Lombard League.

Both buildings are topped by tall towers, have ancient clocks against which townsfolk measured time, and have space for local archives of official documents.

[13] Even the building form grew in size and the town hall concept expanded beyond Europe to become an established institution across the world.

In the 20th century, the town hall served the public as place for voting, examinations, vaccinations, disaster relief, and disseminating information through noticeboards, as well as for the more usual civil work, festivities, and entertainments.

New premises are designed and constructed to separately house local government, the functions of administrative office, and the civic town hall.