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Heritage classified

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Origin and history

The Crémieu Town Hall is an architectural complex composed of two bodies of perpendicular houses, built at different times. The right-wing building, erected in the 16th century, housed meetings of the local community as early as 1593. It still preserves today a room with a monumental stone fireplace and a vaulted cellar called "prison", testimonies of its original use. This building embodies the administrative and social organization of Cremieu in the Renaissance, where local assemblies played a central role in collective management.

In 1703 architects Jacques-Louis Million and Antoine Burnier added a second building, perpendicular to the first, including a stone staircase leading to the new assembly and archives halls. The front door, decorated with the city's weapons, is surmounted by a broken pediment. After the Revolution, in 1791, the community acquired the former abbey of the Augustins, and the consular house was sold to Claude Plantier. The latter replaced the city's weapons with a sundial in 1796, marking a symbolic transition between the Old Regime and the post-revolutionary period.

The inscription "approach you men to go down and rechauff", located above the chimney of the original body, probably dates from the late eighteenth century. It reflects a desire for openness and conviviality, contrasting with the initial administrative and prison functions of the place. Ranked Historic Monument in 1980 for its facades and roofs, the building illustrates the evolution of public and private uses of the same space throughout the centuries.

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