This view of the Queen Elizabeth Walk waterfront shows several prominent colonial landmarks found in the civic district located on the north bank of the Singapore River, including: the Victoria Theatre and Concert Hall (left centre), originally known as the Town Hall and the Victoria Memorial Hall when the two structures were completed in 1861 and 1905 respectively; the Old Supreme Court Building (centre) with its distinctive neoclassical dome, built in 1939 at the site of the Grand Hotel de l'Europe; and City Hall (right centre), completed in 1929 as the Municipal Building before it was renamed in 1951 when Singapore was proclaimed a city by a Royal Charter. Visible in the background are the multi-storey structures built as part of the government’s urban renewal plans for the city centre. Prominent new buildings added to the civic district skyline included: the 31-storey High Street Centre (behind Victoria Theatre and Concert Hall) residential, office and shopping complex, which was completed in 1974; the Colombo Court shopping and office complex (behind Old Supreme Court Building) developed and completed by the Housing Development Board in 1971; the 22-storey Peninsula Hotel (behind Colombo Court), erected in 1974 by private developers as part of the Peninsula hotel and shopping complex; and the Excelsior Hotel (behind Peninsula Hotel), a similar hotel and shopping complex erected in 1983 and linked to the Peninsula shopping centre. The building with the distinctive saucer-shaped tower is the Mandarin Hotel (centre background), which was opened along Orchard Road in 1971.
