T he 12-foot copper dome is a dead giveaway -- this is government building. But what at first appears to be a library or financial building turns out, instead, to be Orlando's City Hall. Situated on five acres of land known as City Hall Commons the building is a tribute to the basic form of other American government buildings while retaining the clean look and spacious feeling of modern Southern U.S. architecture. Perhaps this is what the state of Ohio had in mind when it erected its monstrous flop of a capitol building in Columbus. The Ohio experiment looks dingy and half-finished. But Orlando's version of nearly the same building comes across as stately, possibly because of the additional height, or because a better job was done with the concrete and granite exterior. The interior is nothing to be sniffed at, either. Going through the main entrance, you are greeted by a pair of huge classic staircases leading to the second floor. From there, you can look back at the 80-foot foyer and its patterned floor -- a sun pattern in the Sunshine State. With 280,000 square feet in 10 stories, even though this is a new building one wonders if it is really enough space for such a fast-growing metropolitan area.
