Town Hall - Boulogne-sur-mer

The town hall, built in 1734 on the site of an earlier town hall and adjacent to the medieval belfry , perpetuates and confirms the heart of the upper town in its role as the centre of civic power.

The building itself is quite modest: the façade has only six openings and a single floor with a large attic on top. On the first floor, the mayor's room and the governor's room (wedding room) remain from this primitive core. The latter is decorated with oak panelling in rococo style, with portraits of six Dukes of Aumont, governors of Boulogne from 1622 to 1789, and two allegories representing Justice and Prosperity and the Arts.

The town hall symbolised the beginning of the new growth that marked the town in the 18th century, a period when the population doubled. The town hall was first extended in 1857 with a wing housing the meeting room. This was an opportunity for the town architect, Albert Debayser (1804-1886), to give the façade its current appearance . Extended by a seventh bay, it has a symmetrical composition accentuated by the reinforcement of the entrance, in the centre, by a portico whose terrace is used for public events. The decoration of the rooms is particularly notable for the painted canvases. In the wainscoting of the village hall, there is a large 19th-century painting by Claudius Jacquand illustrating a heroic moment in the history of Boulogne-sur-Mer: Mayor Eurvin refusing to capitulate to the English in 1544 .

The extension soon proved insufficient and in 1872 the idea was put forward to move the town hall to the lower town. In 1928, the extension was back on the agenda: the plan was to build a new building to replace the row of houses on the Place du Palais de Justice. The chosen architect, Pierre Drobecq (1893-1944), planned the construction of the new wing behind the belfry. The extension was inaugurated in October 1934 and the Battle of Tiberias by Georges Mathieu , who was born in Boulogne-sur-Mer in 1921 and died in 2012, is exhibited in the hall.

A Japanese garden, a tea garden with all the philosophy and symbolism of tea in 15th and 16th century Japan, has now been installed in the heart of the Town Hall.

Willem Vandenameele