About this place
The Hôtel de Ville is a graceful example of how a city reused its past. Rather than being built from scratch, it occupies the former dormitories of Saint-Ouen Abbey, the wing where the Benedictine monks once slept, standing immediately north of the great abbey church. After the Revolution dissolved the monastery and the state seized its buildings, the empty dormitories found a new purpose. The city council moved in during May of 1800, and the old monastic range was reworked into a seat of government in a neoclassical style, a project completed in 1825, with a long frontage of nineteen bays in pale ashlar stone. In the gardens stands a striking bronze equestrian statue of Napoleon Bonaparte, unveiled on the fifteenth of August 1865, deliberately chosen because it was the emperor's birthday. It has presided over the square through a great fire in 1926, the bombs of 1944, and the city's liberation that same summer.
Key facts
- 1800 year — The city council moved into the former abbey dormitories in May
- 1865 year — The bronze equestrian statue of Napoleon was unveiled on 15 August
- 19 bays — The long neoclassical frontage is articulated by nineteen bays of ashlar stone
📍 Rue Jean Lecanuet, 76000, Rouen