City Hall (Delft)

File:Delft, monumentaal pand4 foto8 2009-09-27 14.18.JPG

City Hall, Markt, Delft. The building with the red shutters dates back to 1618-20, while the tower is much older and is covered in expensive Belgian limestone.

The City Hall in Delft is a Renaissance style building on the Markt across from the Nieuwe Kerk. It is the former seat of the city's government, and still today the place where residents hold their civic wedding ceremonies. Originally designed by the Dutch architect Hendrick de Keyser, it was heavily changed over the centuries and was restored in the 20th century to its Renaissance appearance.

History

File:Delft - De brand van het stadhuis op 4 maart 1618.jpg

The old city hall burned in 1618, and since Hendrik de Keyser was working across the Markt at the Nieuwe Kerk, he was asked to design a new one.

In the town hall from 1618 are some group portraits, and portraits of the counts of Orange and Nassau, including several by Michiel van Mierevelt (1567–1641), one of the earliest Dutch portrait painters, and with his son Pieter (1595–1623), a native of Delft. The oldest part of the complex is the tower covered in "Gobertanger" limestone from Wallonia, a building material used often in important renaissance buildings in the Netherlands up to 1600. The tower, called "De Steen" or "The Stone", was originally built around 1300 and has decorative clockfaces from 1536 and the bells were made by Hendrick van Trier and Francois Hemony. The facade has a "Justitia" statue. Under the tower is an old city prison where the assassin of Willem the Silent, Balthasar Gérard, was kept before sentencing.

Up the stairway and immediately behind the heavy wooden entrance doors is the Vierschaar, with a decorative painting of the Judgment of Solomon by Pieter van Bronckhorst.

Vierschaar

• Delft stadhuis-vierschaar.jpg

  Vierschaar with painting on the wall by Bronkhorst

• Pieter van Bronckhorst -oordeel van Salamo - vierschaar Delft.jpg

  Judgement of Salomon, by Bronkhorst, 1622

• Delft wedding in Delft stadhuis.jpg

  The City hall is still used for civic weddings, and couples pass through the Vierschaar to the main hall for the ceremony

• Workshop Peter Paul Rubens - Oordeel van Salamo - vierschaar Delft.jpg

  Judgement of Salomon by Rubens'workshop, c.1615

Other views

• WLM - EvaM1978 - Stadhuis Delft.jpg

  View of the front facade with sculpture of Justitia

• 11901 stadhuis delft gezien vanaf nieuwe kerk.jpg

  City hall seen from the tower in the Nieuwe Kerk opposite

• StadhuisDelft-01.jpg

  Seen from the front

• Stadhuis Delft 1e etage kamer.jpg

  Inside, the Nieuwe Kerk is seen through the window

• Delft City Hall Winter.jpg

  City hall in winter