Day 55: municipality

Spent an uncharacteristic-of-my-routine-evening at San Jose last night to attend a lecture that was put on by an old professor of mine (no, he didn't remember me). In getting to know this new city of my educational residence, I was able to check out its city hall.

Hm. City halls are a symbol of local government, an icon for the city it governs. A city hall is meant to have some sort of cultural significance, to give off an aura of grandeur, like in San Francisco:

Hell, San Francisco's city hall is even nicer than Wyoming's State Building

Or something historic and iconic, like the Los Angeles city hall that has shown up in so many films throughout the past century:

Or even Oakland's city hall, whose main purpose is so Oakland can say it has at least one nice building:

even then...

But San Jose's? For the most populous city in the bay area and the self-proclaimed "Capitol of Silicon Valley" it's hideous and looks like it's supposed to be on the moon or something (which, considering that Google Earth has extended to Google Moon, was probably their intention).