Paris City Hall it’s a beautiful building that gives housing to the Mayor of Paris and the local administration. It is also used for special occasions and important receptions.

The city administration used to be located in the ‘parloir aux bourgeois’ near the Chatelet. In 1357 Paris municipality bought the ‘Maison aux Piliers’ (House of Pillars) located on a beach that used to serve as a port and that later became the square ‘Place de Greve’ (Square of the Strand). Ever since that year Paris administration has been located there.

The ‘Maison aux Piliers’ (House of Pillars) was torn down in 1533, as the king Francis I wanted the city hall to be located in a much more majestic building. The architects Dominique de Cortone (Italian, also known as Boccador) and Pierre Chambiges (French) designed an elegant, light and airy building which construction was finished in 1628.

During the French Revolution the Paris City Hall building witnessed many famous events, as the murder of Jacques de Flesselles by an angry crowd and the arrest of Robespierre. During the Franco-Prussian War the Government of National Defense was captured in the building and later rescued using an underground tunnel that still exists. In 1870 the French Third Republic was proclaimed there and in 1944 Charles de Gaulle said his famous speech from a front window.

More recently, Paris City Hall was the scenery of a scandal for illegal jobs given to Jacques Chirac’s party members (France’s president). In 2002 the current mayor and the first openly gay leader Bertrand Delanoe was stubbed in the building during the Sleepless Night festival when the doors were open to the public.