City Hall

The dominant building of Széchenyi Square. The neo-Baroque, eclectic style City Hall received its current facade in 1907.

Free royal town status was sung out from the balcony of its former building on 19th April, 1780. During the Napoleonic wars injured soldiers were nursed here, as it served as a military hospital. A new, Classicist style building was constructed to replace the old one, designed by József Piatsek, local architect, but it soon proved to be too small.
Finally, the constructor of the National Theatre of Pécs, Adolf Lang was commissioned with the task of expanding the building. The peal from its bell tower is part of its ambience, playing every hour. On 30th July, 1896 it was just sounding the noon bell, while in a grocery store (now the site of McDonalds) on the corner of the building carefree gentlemen were smoking their cigarswhen the building caught fire and a huge explosion shook the building, breaking every window around the square, injuring more than two hundred people and killing three.
The flower-bed grid in front of City Hall was constructed based on one of the facade plans of Marcell Breuer. The world-known Bauhaus style artist planned the Y shaped palace of UNESCO in Paris as well as the Whitney Museum of New York. The pavement in front of the City Hall was constructed with a bronze grass pattern and flower grid in memory of Breuer.