The original building In July 1357,
Étienne Marcel,
provost of the merchants (i.e. mayor) of Paris, bought the so-called ('House of Pillars') in the name of the municipality on the gently sloping shingle beach which served as a river port for unloading wheat and wood and later merged into a square, the ('Strand Square'), a place where Parisians often gathered, particularly for
public executions. Ever since 1357, the City of Paris's administration has been located on the same location where the Hôtel de Ville stands today. Before 1357, the city administration was located in the so-called ('Parlour of Burgesses') near the
Châtelet. In 1533, King
Francis I decided to endow Paris with a city hall which would be worthy of his capital, then the largest city of Europe and
Christendom. He appointed two architects: Italian
Dominique de Cortone, nicknamed Boccador because of his red beard, and Frenchman
Pierre Chambiges. The House of Pillars was torn down and Boccador, steeped in the spirit of the
Renaissance, drew up the plans of a building which was at the same time tall, spacious, full of light and refined. Building work was not finished until 1628 during the reign of
Louis XIII. During the next two centuries, no changes were made to the edifice which was the stage for several famous events during the
French Revolution. On 14 July 1789, the last provost of the merchants
Jacques de Flesselles was murdered by an angry crowd. On
27 July 1794,
Maximilien Robespierre attempted to commit suicide following a coup and was arrested along with his followers. File:Plan de Paris vers 1530 Braun Paris place de Greves Hotel de ville.jpg|Former , begun in 1533 (plan by Braun and Hogenberg, c. 1530) File:Hotel de Ville Paris Hoffbauer 1583.jpg|Engraving by Theodor Josef Hubert Hoffbauer (1885) showing how he envisioned the in 1583 File:Nicolas-Jean-Baptiste Raguenet, Place de Grève.jpg|
The and the ,
Nicolas-Jean-Baptiste Raguenet, File:Plan Hotel de ville Theodor Hoffbauer.jpg|The on the Verniquet atlas, 1780s File:Joseph BEAUME - Attaque de l’Hôtel de Ville de Paris, le 28 juillet 1830.jpg|Events at the (left) during the
July Revolution, by
Joseph Beaume. Two wings were built a few years later. File:L'avènement de Louis-Philippe.jpg|
The Arrival of the Duke of Orleans at the Hôtel de Ville by
Charles-Philippe Larivière, 1837
19th-century additions From 1834, the became the seat of the Paris municipal council. In 1835, on the initiative of
Claude-Philibert Barthelot, comte de Rambuteau, of the
Seine , two wings were added to the main building and were linked to the façade by a gallery, to provide more space for the expanded city government. The architects were
Étienne-Hippolyte Godde and
Jean-Baptiste Lesueur. Under the
Second Empire, the was used by the new regime to showcase its power. In 1852, during the
plebiscite in favor of
Napoleon III, the Hôtel was decorated with the colors of the Emperor and the imperial proclamation was made there. It also became the seat of the Prefecture, in addition to hosting major celebrations such as the visit of
Queen Victoria in 1855. To clear its access,
Haussmann had nine streets razed to create the Avenue Victoria. File:Charles Marville, Ancien Hôtel de Ville, escalier de la Cour Louis XIV 2, ca. 1853–70.jpg|The old staircase, c. 1853 File:Charles Marville, Ancien Hôtel de Ville, escalier de la Cour Louis XIV 1, ca. 1853–70.jpg|Detail of the old staircase, c. 1853 File:Harper's weekly (1867) (14780533044).jpg|Grand ball of the Prefect of the Seine in 1857 File:Édouard Baldus, Hôtel de Ville (No. 41) - Getty Museum.jpg|The Hôtel de Ville in the 1860s, photograph by
Édouard Baldus The Paris Commune During the
Franco-Prussian War, the building played a key role in several political events. On 30 October 1870, revolutionaries broke into the building and captured some of the members of the
Government of National Defence, while making repeated demands for the establishment of a
communard government. The existing government escaped via a tunnel built in 1807, which still connects the with a nearby barracks. On 23 January 1871, crowds gathered outside the building to protest against speculated surrender to the Prussians, and were dispersed by soldiers firing from the building, who inflicted several casualties. The had been the headquarters of the
French Revolution, and likewise, it was the headquarters of the
Paris Commune. On 23 and 24 May 1871, when defeat became increasingly imminent and the French army approached the building, the Communards set fire to the , along with other government buildings, destroying it and almost all of the city archives prior to 1860. File:Soulèvement du 22 janvier 1871.jpg|
Uprising of 22 January 1871 at the File:Commune de Paris H de Ville cour Louis XIV.jpg|National Guards in the Louis XIV courtyard, engraving from , 1871 File:Commune de Paris 24 mai incendie de l'Hotel de Ville.jpg|Burning of the by Paris Commune, 23–24 May 1871 File:The Hötel de Ville after the Commune.jpg| after the Paris Commune, photograph by Auguste Hippolyte Collard, 1871 File:Hotel de Ville de Paris par Alphonse Liebert.jpg| with Commune damage, photograph by Alphonse Liebert, 1871
Reconstruction Reconstruction of City Hall lasted from 1873 through 1892 (19 years) and was directed by architects
Théodore Ballu and
Édouard Deperthes, who had won the public competition for the building's reconstruction. The plan entailed the removal of the ruins, and the construction of a completely new building, with a central façade replicating the original 16th-century
French Renaissance building. The side wings replicated those of the 1830-40s, but wider. The building was high at its highest point. Behind the façades, the interior was based on an entirely new design, with ceremonial rooms lavishly decorated in the 1880s style. Ballu also designed the
Church of the Holy Trinity in the
9th arrondissement and the belfry of the town hall of the
1st arrondissement, opposite the
Louvre's east façade. He also restored the
Saint-Jacques Tower, a
Gothic church tower in a square to the west of the Hôtel de Ville. File:Paris-HotelDeVille-PontNotreDame.jpg|At turn of the century, rebuilt in the 1870s in its original
French Renaissance style inspired by the
Châteaux of the Loire Valley File:Hotel de Ville de Paris par ELD.jpg|Colored postcard of the rebuilt , late 19th century File:Le nouvel Hôtel de ville de Paris, 1872-1900 (1900) (14593866467).jpg|Cross section of the building,
Later events Since the
French Revolution, the building has been the scene of a number of historical events, notably the proclamation of the
French Third Republic in 1870. Following the
liberation of Paris by the French
2nd Armoured Division on 25 August 1944, the chairman of the
Provisional Government of the French Republic, General
Charles de Gaulle, gave a speech from a window of the town hall, in which he declared: "Paris! Paris outraged! Paris broken! Paris martyred! But Paris liberated!" In 2002 the mayor,
Bertrand Delanoë, a socialist and the city's first openly gay leader, was stabbed during the first all-night, citywide (literally, 'White Night') festival when the doors of the long-inaccessible building were thrown open to the public. But Delanoë recovered and did not lose his zeal for access, later converting the mayor's sumptuous private apartments into a (day nursery) for the children of municipal workers. During the
2024 Summer Olympics, the
men's and
women's marathons started at the . ==Architecture==