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Gibraltar City Hall

Former city hall for Gibraltar

Field	Value
name	Gibraltar City Hall
former_names	Club House, Club House Hotel, Connaught House
alternate_names	City Hall
image	Gibraltar City Hall 01.jpg
caption	Main façade of the Gibraltar City Hall, from John Mackintosh Square.
map_type	Gibraltar
map_caption	Location within Gibraltar
architectural_style	Regency
owner	Government of Gibraltar
current_tenants	Anthony Lima, Mayor of Gibraltar
location	Gibraltar
address	John Mackintosh Square
coordinates
completion_date	1819

The Gibraltar City Hall is the former city hall for Gibraltar, centrally located within the city at the west end of John Mackintosh Square. It is the office of the Mayor of Gibraltar and since 2023 has been the location of the Registry of Marriages.

History

The building was a private mansion built in 1819 by Aaron Cardozo, a prosperous merchant of Jewish Portuguese descent who had settled in Gibraltar, as his family home. It was the grandest private mansion ever seen in Gibraltar. The three-storey house dominated John Mackintosh Square.

It was erected on the site of the old hospital and chapel of La Santa Misericordia () and later prison. As a non Protestant, Cardozo was not legally allowed to own property in Gibraltar. However, as he had been a close friend of Lord Nelson and had supplied his fleet, he was eventually granted a site to build a house in the Alameda on the condition that it be "an ornament" to the square. Its cost was about £40,000.

After his death in 1834, his mansion was leased to John Ansaldo as a hotel, the Club House Hotel. It was bought in 1874 by Pablo Antonio Larios, a wealthy businessman and banker, Gibraltarian-born but member of a Spanish family, the Larios, who completely refurbished the building. In 1922, his son Pablo Larios, Marquis of Marzales (Master of the Royal Calpe Hunt for 45 years), sold the building to the Gibraltar colonial authorities, which intended to turn it into a post office. However, it eventually became the seat of the newly formed Gibraltar City Council. Since 1926, the Gibraltar telephone service was operated by the City Council, and an automatic exchange serving the territory was installed in the last floor of the building, The building was later extended (including a new storey and a new body to the North) modifying its original symmetry. Nowadays, it houses the Mayor's Parlour.

National Gallery

In 2015, HM Government of Gibraltar set up the Mario Finlayson National Art Gallery at the City Hall. The gallery exhibits the works of prominent Gibraltarian artists such as Gustavo Bacarisas, Jacobo Azagury, Leni Mifsud, and Rudesindo Mannia. Some works by Mario Finlayson are also on display.

References

Bibliography

References

(Benady, 18)
(Bond, 48)
(Bond, 49)
Mascarenhas, Alice. (10 August 2010). "Lombard brings a new sense of history to the role". [[Gibraltar Chronicle]].
(Benady, 19)
(Constantine, 337)
(Romero Frías, 68–69)
(3 June 2015). "Mario Finlayson National Art Gallery opens its doors". [[Gibraltar Broadcasting Corporation]].

Info: Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

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