Hotel de Ville de Paris

Located in Paris center, on the right bank and tangent to the Seine, the Hôtel de Ville de Paris hosts, since 1357, the municipal institutions. The first version of the building was ordered by King Francis I, around 1533, a shiny and refined hotel in the spirit of the Renaissance. Finished in 1628, it was destroyed by a fire during the 1871 'Commune'. Nonetheless, it was rebuilt shorty afterwards to become the most modern building around, and the place of experimentation for the  hydraulic elevator, the electric ladder or, even, the telephone. Nowadays, it remains the biggest city hall in Europe. The square facing the building now belongs to pedestrians and, after six centuries of history, has a high symbolic meaning. Formerly called 'Place de Grève', it was re-baptized Place de l'Hôtel de Ville in 1803 and served for royal parties, such as 'Saint Jean', consisting of honoring victories or dealing with executions. Paris City Hall, with a long list of insurrections, has frequently been the rallying spot for  rioters and revolutionaries. The main front is ornamented with characters relevant to the City Hall of Paris: artists, intellectuals, politicians, entrepreneurs... The interior architecture was conceived to glorify the Republic and thus its mimics the Versailles' Hall of Mirrors, built two centuries earlier. Pariscityvision.com offers a view of the City Hall of Paris during its Paris City Tour trip or the City Tour of Paris and audio guided visit of the Louvre Museum one.