Place de l'Hôtel-de-Ville – Esplanade de la Libération

The facade of the Hotel de Ville stretches across the square with rows of over one hundred statues of famous Parisians embedded in its stone. This building serves as the headquarters for the city government, a function it has held since the middle of the fourteenth century. In eighteen seventy-one, communal insurgents set fire to the structure, destroying the municipal archives and the internal grand staircase. Workers spent the next decade reconstructing the exterior to match the original Renaissance style while expanding the interior space.