Niort Marais poitevin – Vallée de la Sèvre Niortaise Tourist Office offers practical informations to book and organize your trip in Niort and in the Marais Poitevin, “Grand Site de France”.Gites, hotels, guest houses, campsites… come and relax in a quiet place, over the river Sèvre Niortaise and its castles. Ride by boat, by walk or by bike : conquer the Green Venice. Discover animations, activities, sites you must see, restaurants… to move during your next holidays between plain and marsh.
The patrimonial current events of this week, it is of course the annual meeting of Heritage Days.
The theme held this year is " Heritage and Citizenship ". I thus chose quite naturally to speak to you about our City hall, our Town Hall.
A little of history on …
The City hall is raised by Georges Lasseron in the style the neo-Renaissance (hall with boxes, mullioned windows, small windows of roofs topped with front walls). The first stone is put by the President of the Republic, Félix Faure in 1897. The construction lasts four years. To mark the ascendancy of the secularism on the religion, the municipality of period asks for the construction of a belfry (over coat of arms) which hides the bell tower of Notre-Dame seen by the street of the City hall. The coat of arms of the city, situated over the clock, represents both towers of the donjon and the Sèvre Niortaise flowing in its feet. Both savages would be here in memory of the interest which Duke de Berry carried for this disguise. At the time of the discovery of Canada ( 1534 ), these savages were replaced by Iroquois Indians. Municipalities since abandoned this little flattering evocation of the Canadians.
Georges Lasseron (Niort, 1844-Niort, on 1932): an architect of the IIIth Republic
Graduate of the College of the Fine arts, the Architecture Section, Georges Lasseron, influenced by the realizations of Haussman, is the witness in 1871 of the reconstruction of the City hall of Paris among which that of Niort is a declension in miniature. From 1883 till 1913, he is the municipal architect of his home town. With the construction of public and private buildings, he participates in the transformation of the architectural landscape of the city, the end of the XIXth century at the beginning of the XXth century (public Schools, girls' high school, public baths, department store "A la Ménagère", Savings bank, funeral chapels …).
You want of to know more about it on this monument?
Pursue with our route "The tour of Niort in 80 minutes", without forgetting the other visits of monuments symbolic as the Prefecture or the House of the department.
Good visits!
Photo credits: Butterfly Tea (city hall), City of Niort (Prefecture) The New Republic (House of the Department).
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