Cardiff County Hall (Cardiff)

 administrative building, town hall, 1987_construction

The County Hall is the head office of Cardiff City & County Council (formerly South Glamorgan County Council), located beside the disused Bute East Dock in the Atlantic Wharf area of Butetown, Cardiff. Not to be confused with Cardiff City Hall which is located in Cathays Park in the City's Civic Centre.

The building was designed by J.R.C. Bethell, the County Architect for South Glamorgan, and built 1986-7. This was at a time when the surrounding area consisted mainly of post-industrial dereliction. Hence the construction of the new building has been described in Buildings of Wales: Glamorgan as a "remarkable gesture of faith [by] the South Glamorgan County Council". It is seen as representative of a new form of civic building that does not dominate its surroundings by its size, or formal language, to the extent that it could "even [be] a deliberate abregation of the arrogant assertiveness of the late C19, expressed across the water".

County Hall was officially opened by the Right Honourable Lord Callaghan of Cardiff KG, in October 1988. The building is generally three storeys in height, but rises to four and five storeys in places. The distinctive shallow pitch roofs are of black slate. In plan the building is formed around a central courtyard.


www.cardiff.gov.uk/content.asp?parent_directory_id=2865
www.cardiffcountyhall.co.uk/content.asp