Durban's grandest civic building is a great Edwardian baroque pile facing Francis Farewell Square. Inside, two museums share the building: the Durban Art Gallery on the first floor, with an excellent collection of South African modern art and Zulu beadwork, and the Natural Science Museum on the ground floor, with a famous dodo skeleton and a hall of African mammals.
The square out front holds the Cenotaph, a granite war memorial decorated with two ceramic-tiled angels, and the statues of Queen Victoria and various colonial figures. Both museums are free, both worth an hour. The square area is busy by day and not somewhere to linger after dark.