Twentieth century High Point, a major manufacturing center, grew into a prosperous city and in fact became a second county seat (along with Greensboro) of Guilford County. In keeping with its stature, city leaders selected the renowned architect of the North Carolina Legislative Building to design the High Point Municipal Building. The design reiterates some elements of the legislative building, including the use of marble, top lighting (from a pyramidal roof), and the integration of plantings into the architecture. Unlike the colonnade of the legislative building, however, the predominant exterior character derives from increasingly set back horizontal bands of marble and ribbon windows.