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Hôtel de Ville, Rouen
The Hôtel de Ville (French pronunciation: [otɛl də vil], City Hall) is a historic building in Rouen, Seine-Maritime, northern France, standing on Place du Général de Gaulle. The garden façade and roofs were designated a monument historique by the French government in 1948.[1] History The city council initially held its meetings in the Halle aux Marchands, close to the Église Saint-Éloi, in the mid-12th century. It then met in a building on Rue du Gros-Horloge, previously belonging to Simon de Montfort, 5th Earl of Leicester, which was granted to them by Philip II in 1220.[2] After the second Hôtel de Ville became dilapidated, a third Hôtel de Ville was erected on Rue du Gros-Horloge to a design by Jacques Gabriel in the Renaissance style in 1607.[3] After nearly two centuries of use, the third Hôtel de Ville became inadequate and was sold for commercial use in 1796.[4][5] In the late 18th century, the city council was briefly accommodated in the Hôtel de la Première Présidence on Rue Saint-Lô, which had been designed by Jean-Jacques Martinet and completed in 1721.[6] The current building was commissioned as a dormitory for the monks of Saint-Ouen Abbey on a site to the immediate north of the abbey. It was designed by Jean-Pierre Defrance and Jean-Baptiste Le Brument in the neoclassical style, built in ashlar stone and was completed in the mid-18th century. However, it became vacant in 1790 and the city council decided to acquire the former abbey dormitory and moved into the building in May 1800. A programme of works to convert the former dormitory into a municipal building was carried out to a design by Charles-Felix Maillet du Boullay and was completed in 1825.[7] The design involved a symmetrical main frontage of 19 bays facing onto a new square, with the end sections of the three bays each projected forward as pavilions. The ground floor was rusticated and arcaded with a series of round headed openings. The central section of three bays, which was also projected forward, featured a tetrastyle portico on the first floor: it was formed by Corinthian order columns supporting an entablature and a modillioned pediment, with a coat of arms in the tympanum. The building was fenestrated by casement windows with moulded surrounds and cornices and, at roof level, there was a balustraded parapet. Internally, although the principal room was the council chamber,[8] there was a public library on the first floor[9] and a museum on the second floor.[10] An equestrian statue of Napoleon by the sculptor, Gabriel-Vital Dubray, was unveiled in front of the building by the industrialist, Henri Barbet, on 15 August 1865.[11][12] The building was badly damaged in a fire on the night of 30 December 1926 and, although the paintings and statues were saved, the municipal archives were destroyed.[13] The building was subsequently restored to a design by Edmond Lair.[14] On 19 April 1944, during the Second World War, the building was damaged by American aerial bombing.[15] Following the liberation of the town by Canadian troops on 30 August 1944, the French tricolour flag was hoisted on the building by local residents.[16] References
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