Place de l’Hotel de Ville
Its present appearance dates from 1853, but from many centuries, from 1310 to 1830, this vast area was the site of public executions. Flanked by the Rue de Rivoli on one side and the Seine on the other, it is dominated by the wide facade of the Hotel de Ville.
Hotel de Ville
The illustrious old Hotel de Ville, today the seat of the city’s municipal government, stands on the site previously occupied by a 16th-century building designed by Domenico da Cortona and built in the Renaissance style but destroyed by fire at the time of the Commune in 1871. The present building was inspired by the previous one. Hotel de Ville – Designed by Deperthes and Ballu, it was completed in 1882.
Hotel de Ville consists of several pavilions surmounted by domes in the form of truncated pyramids, with a forest of statues at every possible angle.
There are 136 on the building’s four facades, including one on a terrace depicting Etienne Marcel. Inside the building, on 27 July 1794, the soldiers of the Convention arrested Robespierre and his followers.
From the HOTEL DE VILLE ( Metro: lines 1 and 11 – Hotel de Ville station )