Cincinnati City Hall is the seat of the municipal government of

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

. Completed in 1893, the

Richardson Romanesque Richardsonian Romanesque is a style of Romanesque Revival architecture named after the American architect Henry Hobson Richardson (1838–1886). The revival style incorporates 11th and 12th century southern French, Spanish, and Italian Romanesq ...

structure was listed in the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

on December 11, 1972. The building was designed by

Samuel Hannaford Samuel Hannaford (10 April 1835 – 7 January 1911) was an American architect based in Cincinnati, Ohio. Some of the best known landmarks in the city, such as Music Hall and City Hall, were of his design. The bulk of Hannaford's work was do ...

at a cost of $1.61 million. The main building comprises four and a half stories with a nine-story

clock tower Clock towers are a specific type of structure which house a turret clock and have one or more clock faces on the upper exterior walls. Many clock towers are freestanding structures but they can also adjoin or be located on top of another buildi ...

. The building was constructed by the David Hummel company of Cincinnati using stone quarried in Wisconsin, Ohio, Missouri, and Indiana. Marble stairways and

wainscoting Panelling (or paneling in the U.S.) is a millwork wall covering constructed from rigid or semi-rigid components. These are traditionally interlocking wood, but could be plastic or other materials. Panelling was developed in antiquity to make ro ...

originated in Italy and Tennessee, while granite columns were obtained from Vermont. Stained glass windows were installed which depict

Cincinnatus Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus ( – ) was a Roman patrician, statesman, and military leader of the early Roman Republic who became a legendary figure of Roman virtue—particularly civic virtue—by the time of the late Republic. Cincinnatus ...

and illustrate Cincinnati's early history. The first city hall was built on this site in 1852 and was demolished in 1888 to make way for the current structure. Construction costs for the building totaled $1.61 million of which $54,000 was paid to

as architect and construction superintendent.The Cincinnati City Hall 1802-1896 by Edwin Henderson

"Cincinnati's City Hall represents the prevailing architectural tastes at the time of its construction and the influence of H. H. Richardson on its designer, Samuel Hannaford. Richardson's winning design for the Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce building was executed in the 1880s; however, the building's demolition in 1911 left City Hall the best remaining example of
Richardson Romanesque Richardsonian Romanesque is a style of Romanesque Revival architecture named after the American architect Henry Hobson Richardson (1838–1886). The revival style incorporates 11th and 12th century southern French, Spanish, and Italian Romanesq ...
in Cincinnati. Samuel Hannaford practiced from 1858 until 1897 and made a significant contribution to the architectural heritage of the Cincinnati area."

An optical trick known as

forced perspective Forced perspective is a technique that employs optical illusion to make an object appear farther away, closer, larger or smaller than it actually is. It manipulates human visual perception through the use of scaled objects and the correlation ...

makes the building appear even larger than it actually is. As it becomes taller, its windows get smaller.

Notes

National Register of Historic Places in Cincinnati Towers in Ohio Clock towers in Ohio Romanesque Revival architecture in Ohio City and town halls in Ohio City and town halls on the National Register of Historic Places in Ohio Cincinnati Local Historic Landmarks Government buildings completed in 1893 1893 establishments in Ohio {{HamiltonCountyOH-NRHP-stub