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 Old Supreme Court Building (left centre) with its distinctive neoclassical dome, built in 1939 at the site of the Grand Hotel de l'Europe; City Hall (centre), completed in 1929 as the Municipal Building before it was renamed in 1951 when Singapore was proclaimed a city by a Royal Charter; and St. Andrew’s Cathedral (right centre), designed in the Gothic style by Lieutenant-Colonel Ronald MacPherson and completed in 1861 using Indian convict labour. 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 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; the Excelsior Hotel (under construction behind Peninsula Hotel), a similar hotel and shopping complex erected in 1983 and linked to the Peninsula shopping centre; and the 32-storey Peninsula Plaza (behind City Hall), an office and shopping complex opened in late 1979.
