The most important building on Town Hall Square is the town hall itself. Construction began in 1542. The stately building breathes the spirit of Gothic, Baroque and early Classicism, and a tall tower, as graceful as a swan's neck, rises skywards from the main façade. Because of its form and colour the town hall is often called the "White Swan". Its 53 m tower is the tallest in the Old Town. Today's town hall is not the first in Kaunas: the previous one was destroyed by fire and later rebuilt. Over the centuries the town hall served different purposes: the city's main markets, fairs and courts were held here, nine wax-melting furnaces operated beneath its floor, and it also housed a prison and goods warehouses. Today the town hall hosts wedding ceremonies and official events. At the entrance you can see a wax-melting furnace – a unique example of a 15th-century wax-melting furnace. The town hall houses a branch of the Kaunas City Museum, whose holdings include collections from its city history, science and industry, culture and art, sound and image, and archaeology departments. Symbolically, a memorial plaque to Władysław Starewicz – the pioneer of puppet animation, often called the European Walt Disney – has been unveiled by the museum. Starewicz worked in this building for some time. The plaque dedicated to him is held up by insect sculptures depicting three main characters from the director's animated films – a stag beetle, an ant and a grasshopper. He was the first in the world to use puppets in his films, working at a level his contemporaries never managed to reach.