Philly Architecture in the Evening

In the last picture, you can see Philadelphia City Hall in the distance. It is the world's tallest masonry building: the weight of the building is borne by granite and brick walls up to 22 feet thick, rather than steel; the principal exterior materials are limestone, granite, and marble.The building was designed by Scottish architect John McArthur, Jr., in the Second Empire style, and was constructed from 1871 until 1901 at a cost of $24 million. Originally designed to be the world's tallest building, by the time it was completed it had already been surpassed by the Washington Monument and the Eiffel Tower. With close to 700 rooms, City Hall remains one of the largest municipal buildings in North America. The building houses three branches of government, the Executive (Mayor's Office), the Legislative (City Council), and the Judicial Branch's Civil Courts (Court of Common Pleas).

The building is topped by an 11.3-m (36 ft, 4 in), 27-ton bronze statue of city founder William Penn, one of 250 sculptures created by Alexander Milne Calder that adorn the building inside and out. The statue is the tallest atop any building in the world. It is said that Calder wished the statue to face south so that its face would be lit by the sun most of the day.