Hotel de Ville

1. Arrival
2. Nights
3. Guests
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Hotel de Ville is essentially Paris’s city hall. With a long and distinguished history, this is where all the governmental administrative work is done. The building is at the hub of political life in Paris, and makes a great destination for a day out.

The Hotel de Ville had humble origins, and its development reflects changes in social organisation over the years, as old Feudal mechanisms gave way to the rising merchant classes, and finally to the dominance of business at all levels that we see today. A Commune revolt in 1871 destroyed this building as well as the city archives, and a competition was launched for a new design, with a winning proposal to rebuild it in the original style. The present day building was completed in 1882.

Over a hundred statues of famous city residents and symbols of other cities in France decorate the structure, and there is a large clock embellished with personifications of the river Seine, Education and Work. Ever since the Revolution, the French have had a taste for representing Enlightenment ideals of reason and progress in the form of attractive, semi-naked females.

Inside the Hotel de Ville there are many features to admire, including a large staircase, ballroom and stained glass windows.

Most executions in Paris after 1310 were enacted on the Place de Greve, located in front of the Hotel de Ville. Imaginative and entertaining medieval hangings, quarterings, boilings, flayings, burnings, crushings and simple beheadings were replaced by Madame Guillotine (erected here in 1792), and the rest as they say is history. The square is now fully pedestrianised.

There are group tours of the building each day at 10.30am.The Hotel de Ville is close to the Pompidou Centre and Notre Dame, and so makes for a good day out if you rent apartments in Paris.