About
About the Royal Academy of Engineering
As the UK’s national academy for engineering, they bring together the most successful and talented engineers from across the engineering sectors for a shared purpose: to advance and promote excellence in engineering.
The Royal Academy of Engineering provide analysis and policy support to promote the UK’s role as a great place from which to do business. The Academy takes lead on engineering education and invests in the UK’s world class research base to underpin innovation. They work to improve public awareness and understanding of engineering.
The Royal Academy of Engineering has a global outlook and uses their international partnerships to ensure that the UK benefits from international networks, expertise and investment.
About City Hall
City Hall stands in the heart of Cardiff. It is the centrepiece of one of the world’s finest civic centres, an area of impressive buildings, landscaped gardens and broad tree-lined avenues.
The magnificent Edwardian City Hall is the finest building of this superb ensemble, but is actually the fifth to have served as the centre of local Government. Little is known of Cardiff’s original ‘Gild Hall’, but the second Town Hall stood in the middle of St Mary’s Street until it was replaced on the same site in the mid- eighteenth century. The fourth Town Hall, on the western side of St Mary’s Street, was built in 1853 and remained in use until the present City Hall opened in 1904.
The appropriately named Marble Hall is lined by magnificent columns of Sienna marble mounted in bronze. Bronze also is used for the light fittings, which are supplemented by modern spotlights, reflecting the polished marble floor. Delicately stained glass windows and ornate mouldings of mermaids and seashells enhance this beautiful interior. Items from the City Hall art collection are on display, and the Marble Hall is the setting for the series of statues of ‘Heroes of Wales’. These statues, carved from Serraveza marble, were unveiled in 1916, and were the gift of Lord Rhondda. Suggestions for the subjects were invited from all over Wales, and each statue is the work of a different sculptor. It was a twentieth century hero, David Lloyd George, then secretary of State for War, who unveiled the statues. A painting of the ceremony is displayed in the Hall.