Hotel de Ville (Dunkirk)

The Hôtel de Ville (City Hall) of Dunkirk

The town hall is the central venue for the Dunkerque Carnival

The Hôtel de Ville (City Hall) of Dunkirk , Place, Place Charles-Valentin

The Hôtel de ville ( town hall ) of Dunkirk was built in its current form between 1897 and 1901 by Louis Marie Cordonnier in the neo-Flemish style. Today the town hall mainly houses the city council and the registry office .

Building history of the current town hall

The building was supposed to give the then economically flourishing town a new, larger and more representative town hall. A belfry was integrated in the center of the front . From the laying of the foundation stone on May 30, 1897, the construction work lasted four years to the inauguration on September 17, 1901 with President Émile Loubet and Tsar Nicholas II.

The building was damaged in World War I and then renovated. The building was largely destroyed in the Second World War . The bombing on May 27, 1940, which destroyed the roof, the roof structure and almost the entire interior of the building, was particularly serious. Only a few walls remained.

Louis-Stanislas Cordonnier, the son of Louis Marie Cordonnier, was commissioned to restore the building. He rebuilt the town hall almost exactly as his father had designed it, but simplified the facade and roof a little. The town hall was reopened on October 15, 1955 by the President of the Republic René Coty . The north wing was added later and the south wing in 1974.

The sculptors Georges Turck, Edgar Buisine, Auguste Peene, Edgar Boutry, Robert Coin and the painters Robert Chapele, Pierre-Paul Desrumaux and Turpin Buisine were involved in the restoration of the building.

World Heritage Site since 2005

The belfry of the building is 2005 by the UNESCO in the list of World Heritage was registered.

History of the previous buildings

In front of the current town hall, its predecessor buildings have stood in the same place since 1233.

During the conquest and sacking of the city by the French Marshal Thermes in 1558, this first town hall was destroyed. A new town hall was built on the ruins in 1562, adorned with colored glass windows and expanded to include a courtroom.

This building was destroyed by fire in 1642 and rebuilt in 1644. In 1812 the facade of this building was adorned with a portico in the neoclassical style supported by four Doric columns. At the end of the 18th century the old town hall was too small and not representative enough for the then flourishing town. To make room for a new building, the old building was laid down on August 4, 1896.