Façade_de_l'hôtel_de_ville,_Rennes,_France

Rennes City Hall (french: Mairie de Rennes, Hôtel de ville de Rennes) is the seat of the city council in the French city of

Rennes Rennes (; br, Roazhon ; Gallo: ''Resnn''; ) is a city in the east of Brittany in northwestern France at the confluence of the Ille and the Vilaine. Rennes is the prefecture of the region of Brittany, as well as the Ille-et-Vilaine department ...

. It has been classed by the French government as a ''

monument historique ''Monument historique'' () is a designation given to some national heritage sites in France. It may also refer to the state procedure in France by which National Heritage protection is extended to a building, a specific part of a building, a coll ...

'' since 1962.

History

The

baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...

building was designed by

Jacques Gabriel Ancient and noble French family names, Jacques, Jacq, or James are believed to originate from the Middle Ages in the historic northwest Brittany region in France, and have since spread around the world over the centuries. To date, there are over ...

, who was tasked with rebuilding many building in Rennes after a fire in 1720. Gabriel chose to break with the past and build a new city worthy of the

Age of Enlightenment The Age of Enlightenment or the Enlightenment; german: Aufklärung, "Enlightenment"; it, L'Illuminismo, "Enlightenment"; pl, Oświecenie, "Enlightenment"; pt, Iluminismo, "Enlightenment"; es, La Ilustración, "Enlightenment" was an intel ...

. The city hall was placed on a newly built square. The south wing held the council and the north wing held a court, while in the middle there was a

bell tower A bell tower is a tower that contains one or more bells, or that is designed to hold bells even if it has none. Such a tower commonly serves as part of a Christian church, and will contain church bells, but there are also many secular bell tower ...

with a statue of

Louis XV Louis XV (15 February 1710 – 10 May 1774), known as Louis the Beloved (french: le Bien-Aimé), was King of France from 1 September 1715 until his death in 1774. He succeeded his great-grandfather Louis XIV at the age of five. Until he reache ...

, which would be destroyed during the

French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are considere ...

. The statue of the monarch was in honour of his support for rebuilding the city. From 1840 to 1855, the Faculty of Sciences at the

University of Rennes The University of Rennes is a public research university which will be officially reconstituted on 1 January 2023 and located in the city of Rennes, in Upper Brittany, France. The University of Rennes has been divided for almost 50 years, before ...

was based in the north wing, hosting academics such as the chemistry professor

Faustino Malaguti Faustino Giovita Mariano Malaguti (15 February 1802 – 26 April 1878) was a chemist. Born in pre-Unification of Italy, unification Italy, he was exiled and took French citizenship in 1840. Biography Malaguti was born in Pragatto near Bologna, wh ...

. Emmanuel Le Ray refurbished the City Hall in the early 20th century, including the ''Panthéon rennais'' memorial to the victims of the First World War. The names of great French generals are inscribed on the ceiling, though the name of

Philippe Pétain Henri Philippe Benoni Omer Pétain (24 April 1856 – 23 July 1951), commonly known as Philippe Pétain (, ) or Marshal Pétain (french: Maréchal Pétain), was a French general who attained the position of Marshal of France at the end of World ...

– later the head of state of the collaborationist

Vichy France Vichy France (french: Régime de Vichy; 10 July 1940 – 9 August 1944), officially the French State ('), was the fascist French state headed by Marshal Philippe Pétain during World War II. Officially independent, but with half of its ter ...

– has been removed. The niche where the statue of Louis XV stood was later occupied by a Jean Boucher sculpture of

Anne of Brittany Anne of Brittany (; 25/26 January 1477 – 9 January 1514) was reigning Duchess of Brittany from 1488 until her death, and Queen of France from 1491 to 1498 and from 1499 to her death. She is the only woman to have been queen consort of France ...

, the last sovereign ruler of the duchy, marrying

Charles VIII of France Charles VIII, called the Affable (french: l'Affable; 30 June 1470 – 7 April 1498), was King of France from 1483 to his death in 1498. He succeeded his father Louis XI at the age of 13.Paul Murray Kendall, ''Louis XI: The Universal Spider'' (Ne ...

. On 7 August 1932, during festivities for the 400th anniversary of the

Union of Brittany and France The union of Brittany and France was a critical step in the formation of modern-day France. Brittany had been a semi-independent component of the Kingdom of France since Clovis I was given authority over the Gallo-Roman domain during the 5th c ...

, it was destroyed by a bomb laid by Breton nationalists; nothing has since replaced it on the plinth.

References

{{coord missing, France City and town halls in France Buildings and structures in Rennes Monuments historiques of Ille-et-Vilaine Baroque architecture in France Buildings and structures completed in 1743