A green domed stone city hall faces a formal lawn ringed by colonnaded Edwardian office fronts.
What Donegall Square looks like
stands at the centre of Donegall Square behind black iron railings. Its green copper dome rises above a Portland stone front of paired columns and a sculpted pediment. A formal lawn runs the width of the building in mown stripes, cut by paved paths, with flagpoles and a marble statue set before the main portico.
The square is ringed on its north, south, east and west sides by Edwardian office fronts in stone. Their own domed corner towers and colonnades answer City Hall's. The on the west side has paired octagonal domed pavilions over a carved stone front, the company's name lettered on a ribbon carved above the entrance arch. Robinson and Cleaver's former department store on the north side is faced in Scrabo stone, with three corner turrets topped in verdigris domes.
A taxi rank runs along the square's north side opposite the main gates, with a second rank on the east side at Patterson's Place. A white marble Titanic memorial stands on the east lawn in the grounds. The , flanked by flagpoles, stands on the west side among its own stretch of grass.
Buses and black cabs run past the railings on the roads along the square's north and south sides. The dome itself rises in two shells, an inner one set inside the outer copper roof. It stays visible over the office cornices from every corner of the lawn.
Shot in Donegall Square
David, a Hindi and Tamil crime drama directed by Bejoy Nambiar, was the first Bollywood production to shoot on location in Northern Ireland. The production filmed inside Belfast City Hall in September 2012, with Invest Northern Ireland and Northern Ireland Screen assisting the production.
David, 2013
The Great Hall and main staircase
Belfast City Council approved at least a full day's filming in the Great Hall and the main staircase, part of a wider nine day shoot in the city between 5 and 14 September 2012. The production asked for a nearby room, the Banqueting Hall or the Reception Room, to hold 50 to 60 extras at a time for the scenes made inside the building.
What Donegall Square can double for
Durban, South Africa
Durban's City Hall was completed in 1910. Architect Stanley Hudson modelled it directly on Belfast's, down to the green central dome and the pale Edwardian Baroque front. It stands behind its own formal gardens the way Belfast's hall stands behind Donegall Square's lawn. Durban's facade has its own line of allegorical statues. The surrounding streets look subtropical in a wide shot, with palms and a different roofline beyond, so a tighter frame on the dome and portico holds the match best. Try searching green dome city hall now.
Cardiff's own Edwardian Portland stone City Hall was completed in 1906, the same year as Belfast's. It fronts a large lawn the way Donegall Square's lawn fronts Belfast's hall, with Alexandra Gardens and the other formal gardens around it keeping the same open civic scale. Cardiff's building has a clock tower and a dragon finial rather than Belfast's dome, so a composition that favours the lawn and the colonnaded flank over the roofline holds the match better. Try searching Edwardian city hall lawn now.
