Hotel de Ville (Montreal)

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Hôtel de Ville of Montreal

The Hôtel de Ville , the city hall of Montreal . It is located in the old town ( Vieux-Montréal ) on Rue Notre-Dame Est 275, between Place Jacques-Cartier and the Champ-de-Mars and opposite the Château Ramezay . The building was erected between 1872 and 1878. The Hôtel de Ville was declared a National Historic Site in 1984 as a prime example of the Second Empire style in Canada and the first purpose-built building in the country for municipal administration purposes.

history

Front view of the Hôtel de ville from 1874
The town hall rebuilt in 1937 after the fire of 1926

After Montreal was granted the status of a self-governing city in 1832, the mayor and city council successively used six different buildings, including the former Justice Palace and the Marché Bonsecours . These permanent temporary arrangements did not meet the requirements, so the decision was made to build a town hall. Construction began in 1872 and lasted six years, the architects were Henri-Maurice Perrault and Alexander Cowper Hutchison . The inauguration took place on March 11, 1878.

In March 1922, a fire largely destroyed the building, only the facades remained. The city architect Louis Parant was commissioned to rebuild. A completely new self-supporting steel skeleton was then created inside . The building was raised by one story and the mansard roof was clad in copper instead of the original slate, modeled on the Tours town hall . The reconstruction was completed on February 15, 1926. From 1932 to 1934 an annex was built on the rear side of the Champ de Mars .

Building

The five-storey town hall, built of gray limestone , stands slightly elevated on a terrace so that it can be seen from a distance. The main facade facing Rue Notre-Dame consists of five symmetrical sections and a central, protruding risalit with a portico . The mansard roof, the chimneys, a bell tower and a clock tower underline the monumentality of the building. While the lower part of the building is modeled on the Italian Renaissance and thus corresponds to the British architectural taste of the time, the upper part is kept in the French-influenced Beaux Arts style.

Web links

Commons : Hôtel de Ville (Montreal)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Lieu historique national du Canada de l'Hôtel-de-Ville-de-Montréal. Lieux patrimoniaux du Canada, accessed October 3, 2012 (French).
  2. ^ "Leurs Honneurs, Messieurs les Maires". (No longer available online.) Center d'histoire de Montréal, archived from the original on June 16, 2011 ; Retrieved October 2, 2011 (French). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www2.ville.montreal.qc.ca
  3. ↑ a b c Hôtel de ville de Montréal. In: Vieux-Montréal. City of Montreal and Province of Québec, accessed October 2, 2011 (French).

Coordinates: 45 ° 30 ′ 31.9 ″  N , 73 ° 33 ′ 14 ″  W.