Norfolk’s Old City Hall Building, built in 1908, retained its neo-Palladian
Revival Style of architecture as it was transformed into the headquarters
office building for a local insurance company. Careful research of the
original building documents revealed a public building with superior attention
to detail and scale.
Decisions concerning the reuse of interior spaces centered around maintaining significant architectural features and details. The work included cleaning and restoring the building’s exterior and significant restoration of the marble-clad atrium. This involved the restoration of badly damaged ornamental plaster work, reglazing of the central skylight, and replacement of the unique glass block floor that provides natural light to the floor below.
The approach to the restoration was one of careful documentation and repetition
of the original details, especially in the area of the marble and plaster
ornamentation.