Hôtel de Ville de Genève
Geneva's centuries-old town hall, where councillors once rode their horses up a cobbled indoor ramp instead of climbing stairs. Behind its plain facade, the First Geneva Convention was signed in 1864, giving birth to the Red Cross and modern humanitarian law.
Sobre este lugar
The Hôtel de Ville has been the seat of Geneva's government for more than five hundred years, growing wing by wing from a cluster of medieval houses into the rambling complex you see today. Its most famous quirk is the Rampe de la Treille, a wide cobbled ramp built in the second half of the sixteenth century in place of a grand staircase, so that magistrates, messengers and even horses could climb straight to the upper council chambers without dismounting. Alongside it stands the Baudet Tower, its name a nod to the donkeys that once plodded up the slope. Yet the building's true importance is invisible from the street: inside lies the Alabama Room, where delegates from sixteen nations signed the First Geneva Convention on 22 August 1864, founding modern humanitarian law and the Red Cross, and where an international tribunal later settled the landmark Alabama Claims in 1872. Few plain buildings anywhere have shaped the wider world so profoundly.
Datos clave
- 1864 year — The First Geneva Convention, founding act of the Red Cross, was signed here in the Alabama Room
- 16 nations — Sent delegates to sign that founding humanitarian treaty on 22 August 1864
- 1556 year — The date carved above the portal of the monumental cobbled ramp, built for horses rather than stairs
📍 Rue de l'Hôtel-de-Ville 2, 1204, Genève