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Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

The Sens city hall, located 100 rue de la République, was built in the early twentieth century and inaugurated in 1904. Its location is the result of the destruction in 1900 of Lorne's house, originally planned to house the town hall but finally rejected by a municipal commission in 1895. The project was launched by MP Lucien Cornet, who laid the first stone on 21 April 1901, marking the beginning of the work.

The construction experienced major complications, including the partial collapse of scaffolding due to failing loggers, without causing any casualties. Despite these delays, the inauguration took place on 9 April 1904, Easter Day, celebrated by songs from La Marseillaise and fireworks. The building was designed to symbolize the triumph of the Republic, with an interior decoration signed by artists such as Jean-Jacques Scherrer and Emmanuel Cavaillé-Coll.

Several interior elements (scaling, wedding hall, large living room) have been listed as historic monuments since 1997, while the rest of the building has been listed since 1995. The facades and roofs, including the entrance gate on Rue Émile Peynot, were protected in 1971. The city hall thus embodies both the administrative history of Sens and a preserved artistic heritage.

Sources mention a confusion about the construction periods: although Monumentum evokes the sixteenth–XVIIIth centuries, Wikipedia's detailed texts and key dates (1901–1904) confirm a realization at the beginning of the twentieth century. This discrepancy could be due to a reference error or confusion with former town halls earlier in Sens.

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