The study delves on tendency of publicness that appear in city hall complexes built in recent years. For the purpose, publicness defined in terms of building program, morphology of building form and exterior space, and sustainability were applied to the case study. Social concerns on city hall projects appeared in the newspaper and professional concerns in architectural magazine were analyzed for 5 years(2005-2010). The social concerns included the excessive building area and extravagant form, excessive energy consumption, financial bankruptcy, private sector oriented site development etc. and were adapted by the central government to rationalize control local government and public building projects. Professional concerns by the architects were adhered to spatial and abstract contents, and competition juries stayed mute and speechless. At the last, an indepth study on Seoul city hall construction project involved on the upper mentioned public issues. To fulfill the public issues of city hall project next following is necessary: building programs should contain real essential needs: building forms should abstain from superficial fashion neglecting soundness and constancy; exterior space should be maximized to perform balanced role with building; concept of sustainability should be carried not only by technological devices but also with cultural consistency keeping the possibility of enlargement within the existing site.