Kristiansand City Hall is located on the upper

square In Euclidean geometry, a square is a regular quadrilateral, which means that it has four equal sides and four equal angles (90-degree angles, π/2 radian angles, or right angles). It can also be defined as a rectangle with two equal-length adj ...

Kristiansand Kristiansand is a seaside resort city and municipality in Agder county, Norway. The city is the fifth-largest and the municipality the sixth-largest in Norway, with a population of around 112,000 as of January 2020, following the incorporation ...

municipality in

Vest-Agder Vest-Agder (; "West Agder") was one of 18 counties (''fylker'') in Norway up until 1 January 2020, when it was merged with Aust-Agder to form Agder county. In 2016, there were 182,701 inhabitants, around 3.5% of the total population of Norway. I ...

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

. The city hall houses

city council A municipal council is the legislative body of a municipality or local government area. Depending on the location and classification of the municipality it may be known as a city council, town council, town board, community council, rural counc ...

hall and meeting rooms. The municipal administration, including the

mayor In many countries, a mayor is the highest-ranking official in a municipal government such as that of a city or a town. Worldwide, there is a wide variance in local laws and customs regarding the powers and responsibilities of a mayor as well a ...

's office is located in the other buildings with front facing the square. These offices also have access from the neighboring street

Tollbodgata Tollbodgata is a street in Kristiansand, Norway. The street is one way westbound with sidewalks on both sides of the road. It consists mostly of apartments, houses and stores. Places of note Kristiansand and Vest-Agder main police station an ...

History

In the early 19th century the city had few public buildings. In the 1830s began the need for municipal buildings to be intrusive. It was planned a town hall that would contain

courthouse A courthouse or court house is a building that is home to a local court of law and often the regional county government as well, although this is not the case in some larger cities. The term is common in North America. In most other English-spe ...

tax collector A tax collector (also called a taxman) is a person who collects unpaid taxes from other people or corporations. The term could also be applied to those who audit tax returns. Tax collectors are often portrayed as being evil, and in the modern wo ...

, police commissioner,

magistrate The term magistrate is used in a variety of systems of governments and laws to refer to a civilian officer who administers the law. In ancient Rome, a '' magistratus'' was one of the highest ranking government officers, and possessed both judici ...

- and

jail A prison, also known as a jail, gaol (dated, standard English, Australian, and historically in Canada), penitentiary (American English and Canadian English), detention center (or detention centre outside the US), correction center, correc ...

to replace the rickety, old jail in town. Presidency turned to the Norway's most renowned architects. High construction costs meant that plans were put aside. In the late 1850s offered the

government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government is a ...

to pay large contributions to municipalities who raised new jail constructions. The city did not let the chance go by. The magistracy proposed in 1860 to build the city hall and the jail at the square (marketplace). Architect Carl Emil Kaurin in Christiania constructed the city hall. The city hall with jail was built by workers from the capital in 1863-1864. The city hall was inaugurated on 15 September 1864. The Presidency hall was placed in the city hall in 1951. In the early 1980s, the old jail was demolished in connection with an expansion of the neighboring street Festningsgata, and the city hall was reconstructed and redecorated by city architect Alf Erikstad.

References

External links

About the city hall
Kristiansand municipality {{in lang, no (Translation possible into several languages, including English) Buildings and structures in Kristiansand City and town halls in Norway 1864 establishments in Norway