The Hôtel de Ville stands where Paris once smelled of burning flesh. Its elegant Renaissance facade replaced what locals called "the burning chamber," the Place de Grève, where centuries of public executions drew crowds to watch everything from heretics to assassins meet their grisly ends.

The original building was a fixture of the French Revolution: Louis XVI came here after the storming of the Bastille to concede to revolutionaries, and the women of Paris gathered in the square before marching on Versailles. The current structure dates from 1882, rebuilt after the Paris Commune torched it in 1871. Charles de Gaulle announced Paris's liberation from its balcony in August 1944.

VoiceMap's self-guided audio tours trace the building's role as a backdrop to revolution, exploring how the square where workers once waited for employment gave the French the word "grève," meaning strike.