Pori's former town hall stands on Hallitustori square in the heart of the old town — a handsome Empire-style building from 1841 designed by Carl Ludwig Engel, the same architect responsible for Senate Square in Helsinki. The building no longer serves municipal purposes but remains the architectural centrepiece of central Pori.
The square in front is a good starting point for a walk through the old town grid. Engel's restrained neoclassicism gives the square a coherence and seriousness that few Finnish provincial towns can match. The surrounding wooden buildings and merchant houses add warmth to what is otherwise a rather formal composition.