Auckland Town Hall, New Zealand Editorial Photo

Opened on 14 December 1911 by Lord Islington, then the Governor of New Zealand, the building is one of the most prominent heritage structures on Queen Street. Costing £126,000 to construct, it was designed by Melbourne architects, JJ & EJ Clarke, their Italian Renaissance Revival building selected from amongst 46 proposals. The five-storey building was specially designed to fit the wedge-shaped piece of land that had been acquired for it at the meeting of Queen Street and Grey Street in the 1870s. It bears a striking resemblance to the new Lambeth Town Hall at Brixton, London built around the same time. The town hall formed Auckland`s first permanent seat of both administration and entertainment in the city`s history, with its Great Hall seating 1,673 people modelled on the Gewandhaus in Leipzig, and being considered as having among the finest acoustics in the world.