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- Leeds Town Hall is an unforgettable sight. There is a remarkable tension between the counter-intuitive tower and the body of the building. This tension is not merely between the vertical and the horizontal, there is also a calculated stylistic change. The building itself uses the device of columns and pilasters monotonously. [...] Domes are not meant to be concave. There is some terrible abnormality here, it's like a Satanic freakshow devised by Beardsley, or by Victor Hugo, who wrote "deformity is akin to sublimity". Indeed, the building's entire exterior exhibits a taste for monstrous perversity in stone. Brodrick exploited [Millstone Grit's] properties from the outset. It cannot be worked delicately. It lends itself to gigantism, solidity, and this sort of rustication – vermicular, that is, it's in the form of worms. [...] It tells us that the city state of Leeds will exist long after its current crop of citizens is dead. This building puts us in our place as surely as any great cathedral. (en)
- No one would wish to underestimate the importance of the metropolis, but, after all, it is not in London that we find the best specimens of our English architecture ... It is in what were once provincial cities or hamlets that we discover the most venerable and the most striking memorials of the taste and self-consecration of our forefathers. And the time may come when the archaeologist of a future age will look for the best specimens of the buildings of the present reign, not to the Law Courts or in the Houses of Parliament, but to some provincial towns, where possibly the hurry and rush of life have not been as great as in the capital. (en)
- Mr J. A. Picton stated that he had an opportunity of inspecting the new Town Hall. Externally it was not so imposing as St George's Hall, Liverpool, but internally it was a work of equally great merit. The laying of it out was equal to anything he had ever seen, and superior to their own hall in that respect. The two defects of St George's Hall were the meanness of the entrances and the darkness of the corridors, both of which were obviated in the building at Leeds. The building was in every respect highly creditable to the builder. (en)
- Mr H. P. Horner confirmed its fitness for the purpose was externally was superior to St George's Hall, and overcame the objections made to buildings of a classical character as to the necessity for the introduction of windows. The interior would be in many respects superior, more particularly in reference to the lighting. In every respect the Leeds Town Hall was the most successful building that had been raised during the present century. (en)
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