The street rises between two rows of houses painted in different colours, and at the top it stops at a dome. From the bottom of the hill the building ahead is the only thing in view that is not someone’s home.
A view that points
Placing a civic building at the head of a street is a quiet form of instruction. The narrow walls on either side work like the sides of a lens, and the dome is where they focus. Anyone walking up is looking at the city hall long before they reach it.
The houses matter just as much. Their mixed colours make the street feel lived in, so the civic building reads as part of the neighbourhood rather than set apart from it.
Anyone walking up is looking at the city hall long before they reach it.
One city uses an entire street plan to do it; this one needs only a narrow street and a hill.
