CITY HALL With the positioning of City Hall on top of the hill in the old city centre the Emperor intended to trigger several urban development at once. The first is the establishment of a pole for Churchill Road, which now ran as a straight axis from the train station to the City Hall. The second is the redevelopment of the historical area around Piazza. The third is an even wider impact on the modern zation of the city and society as a whole. The grandeur of buildings such as City Hall and also Africa Hall was supposed to demonstrate to the Ethiopian elite the feasibility of building large and lasting buildings under the given conditions. City Hall is not only an administrative building, but also houses the council hall, a cinema, a theatre, a library, a bar, a club, a restaurant, and a panorama terrace. The building is structured into three wings. Two of these accommodate offices and open up a grand courtyard with an obelisk-like tower in the centre ‘The third partis for all public functions. In between, a street for the drop-off of guests runs through the building. Architect Mezzedimi recalls presenting 1:50 scale model of City Hall to the emperor, which was so large that a temporary room was built for it, Anxious to commence work, he enquired about bureaucratic preliminaries and when I answered that the City Council had ordered the formation of a commission for the final decision, he interrupted me with bitter and cutting sarcasm: ,Une com- mission? Vous étes fichu dans un dréle de guépier”. Which tellingly revealed what he thought of it~ However, pompous the design might be, it shows some very modern elements: the very hybrid programme of mixed functions, and the intertwining of building with infrastructure - a street is running through the heart of the buildingCITY HALL GROUND FLOORPLANCITY HALL FIRST FLOORPLAN =}