Hotel de Ville (Langres)
The town hall of Langres ( French Hôtel de Ville ) is a classicist building in the French city of Langres in the Haute-Marne department in Champagne . The building was built from 1774 to 1781 according to plans by the architect Nicolas Durand and replaced a building from the 16th century in the same place. It burned down in 1892 and was then rebuilt with an almost identical exterior view. It has been a listed building since 1989.
location
The town hall is located in the northwest part of the historic city center of Langres. Its north-facing facade dominates the relatively small town hall square (Place de l'Hôtel de Ville) .
history
Former town halls
The emancipation of the townspeople from the violence of the Langres diocese in the late Middle Ages and at the beginning of the modern era took a long time. Correspondingly, the meeting places of the city representatives developed relatively late. It was not until 1463 that the town became the owner of a building dedicated to its meetings. In 1581 a town hall was occupied for the first time on the site of the later Hôtel de Ville , after the then mayor Sébastien Valtier had acquired a three-gabled Gothic building. This was structurally altered and expanded significantly in the following 150 years, including the installation of a clock, presumably a dome, a gate and, after Langres became the royal court in 1641, a prison. On December 3, 1749, this was badly damaged in a fire.
Planning and financing
In 1754 the first steps were taken to rebuild the outdated building. The city council commissioned the city architect Claude Forgeot to prepare an offer and a plan. This project was in competition with a project that the director of the Champagne Province , Gaspard-Louis Rouillé d'Orfeuil , had commissioned from the Paris-based provincial architect Nicolas Durand . One part of the building was intended to serve the city council, the other the royal judicial organs. The royal prison should be integrated on the back of the building.
In both projects, each of the two parties involved - the king and the city - should pay for the parts owed to them. The city council preferred their architect's proposal, which was cheaper and, unlike Durand and Rouillé d'Orfeuil's proposal, did not require the purchase of land. However, the king, who ultimately made the decision, preferred the proposal of his intendant, and this was carried out. In exchange for the assurance that the old building would be used and the maintenance costs of the new one would be borne by the city, the city received the full payment of the construction costs by the king. However, this imposed an additional levy of 50,000 livres on the inhabitants of Champagne to cover . The construction budgeted at 216,000 livres in the original Durand project ultimately cost almost three times as much at 602,000 livres. The main reasons for the high additional costs were, on the one hand, the sharp rise in prices for building materials during the construction period and, on the other hand, the interest payments for the loans taken out at the beginning of the construction.
Execution of construction work
The construction work, which began in 1774, encountered difficulties, mainly due to capacity problems due to other larger projects of both secular and sacred buildings being carried out at the same time. The existing quarries in the region were therefore largely exhausted and new deposits had to be developed. Materials from demolished buildings were also reused, especially from the previous building. In 1781 the work was completed.
Fire and reconstruction
There were two fires as early as the 18th century, on November 13, 1786 and March 26, 1795. The second fire caused significant damage, especially in the council chamber and the archive. About a century later, on the night of December 3rd to 4th, 1892, the entire building fell victim to the flames after a fire that was believed to have broken out on the second floor of the west wing quickly spread over the roof structure to the rest of the building. Despite the use of massive fire fighting forces, only the walls of the building remained. Spreading of the fire to the neighboring buildings could also be prevented thanks to snow that had fallen the day before; the prison was also spared.
The reconstruction of the building was quickly decided and carried out. In this context, it was initially considered to outsource the judicial authorities to a separate building. However, this failed because the budget for the construction of a corresponding palace of justice could not be raised. So the court stayed in the rebuilt town hall.
While the outer walls in the rebuilt town hall completed in 1894 were unchanged, the interior was completely redesigned. On May 4th and 5th, 1895, the building was inaugurated with lavish celebrations and in the presence of the building minister Ludovic Dupuy-Dutemps .
Since the beginning of the 20th century
The prison was decommissioned after a judicial reform in 1921 and demolished in the 1960s after being used again during World War II . The city library housed in the town hall was moved to a separate building in 1987. Finally, the court left the building in 2009, which means that it has been used exclusively by the city administration since then.
Design of the building
Functional aspects
Like the town hall of Châlons-en-Champagne, which was also designed by Durand , the building was intended as a multi-purpose building: the west wing housed the city council, which in the east housed the royal court ( présidial ) , supplemented by a prison on the back of the building.
facade
The north-facing, strictly symmetrical classicist facade consists of two side wings and a central part, which is highlighted as a risalit and by four columns with Corinthian capitals . The pillars extend over the two upper rows of windows of the building; they carry an architrave that is continued on the side wings and extends over the entire width of the building. There is a triangular fronton above the pillars .
The only figurative sculptural element of the facade is located in the fronton: a relief of two angels holding a coat of arms. The king's lily banner was originally shown on this ; after the French Revolution this was replaced by the initials of the republic, RF. In the background, antiquing trophies symbolize the military power of the king as an allegory .
Bell tower
Until the fire in 1892, the symmetry of the building was further emphasized by a slender bell tower in the center of the roof. It was not rebuilt after the fire, but replaced by the larger, less soaring construction that has existed since then above the large fronton. This, designed by the city architect Eugène Durand, is designed in the form of an aedicula that serves as a clock and bell tower and in turn has a small fronton in which the city's coat of arms is attached.
Interior
During the reconstruction, the interior of the building was completely redesigned and splendid; in particular, the large central staircase also dates from this period. The sculptures in the interior were designed by the Parisian artist Alfred Thiébault .
Individual evidence
- ^ Hotel de Ville. City of Langres, accessed December 23, 2017 (French).
- ^ Hôtel de Ville Langres in the Base Mérimée , accessed on December 23, 2017.
- ↑ Hôtel de Ville (63715271). In: OpenStreetMap . Retrieved December 23, 2017 .
- ↑ View on Google Street View , July 2016, accessed December 23, 2017.
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i Laissez-vous conter l'Hôtel de Ville. (PDF file) City of Langres, accessed on December 23, 2017 (French, with numerous historical and current illustrations).
Coordinates: 47 ° 51 '55.9 " N , 5 ° 19' 53.1" E