Yesterday we met our homeschooling friends in Downtown Edmonton for a tour of City Hall. We met our tour guide, Bruce, and headed into the River Valley room where we learned about the history of the building and what it is used for. We also learned about the artwork displayed in the building.
City Hall was built in 1992 and cost $50 million dollars. 1% of the cost of the building is spent on artwork.
The Friendship Tower cost $1 million dollars and was paid for by donations. It's bells at the top play over 99 melodies.
The stone on the walls inside City Hall is Tyndell Stone and comes from Manitoba - in places you can even see fossils within the stone! This stone is used on many important buildings in Canada.
Our Poet Laureate has a display in the main foyer right now and asks you to write a short poem or a few words about your thoughts on Edmonton. These are going to be put in a book and published!
We saw other designs for city hall that were refused:
We enjoyed seeing all the mixed media art forms throughout the building:
We learned all about this painting which is called 'There is a River'. The artist doesn't sign her paintings - instead she ALWAYS places a little girl and boy holding hands SOMEWHERE in the painting. They were NOT easy to spot :)
Council Chamber - where big issues are debated. Seats up to 200. The ceiling opens and closes to keep the room warm and to darken the room for slideshows and presentations.
Up in the Mayors office we were shown the chair that was given to the City by Edmonton, Middlesex, England. Our city was named after the English town.
We learned all about the glass pyramid roof and how it was designed and how it is cared for:
Bruce took a couple of group pictures of us at the end of the tour:
After the city hall tour, we all walked over to the Reuse Centre - a few people had never been, and so we all had a look round and got a few things :)
