Durban City Hall was commissioned in 1903 and designed by Stanley Hudson as a replica of the Belfast City Hall. This imposing building has an Auditorium, Public Library, Art Gallery, and Natural Science Museum.
The City Hall is in Francis Farewell Square, named after Henry Francis Fynn, one of the founders of Durban. The statue of a winged peace commemorates those who died in the Anglo-Boer War, 1899-1902; Sir John Robinson, the first Prime Minister of Natal, looks towards the City Hall; and General Jan Christian Smuts stands on one side.
Inside the building there are many beautiful details: wooden floors and doors, vaulted ceilings with clerestory windows in the beautiful Art Gallery; patterned metal stair rails sweeping up to the Natural Science Museum; and pretty stained glass windows.
Round the corner is The Old Court House Museum, the first public building built in Durban, in 1866. When we visited there was an interesting, although sobering, exhibition about Nat Nakasa.
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General Jan Christian Smuts
Nat Nakasa
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