Lyon After Dark Illumination

The Palais de la Bourse features a heavy stone facade decorated with statues representing Lyon’s commerce and industry. Napoleon the Third officially inaugurated this building in eighteen sixty-two to provide a home for the city’s stock…

The Opéra National de Lyon features a massive, semi-cylindrical glass barrel vault perched atop the stone shell of an eighteenth-century theater. Architect Jean Nouvel added this modern superstructure in nineteen ninety-three, doubling the…

The Place des Terreaux is defined by the massive, bronze Bartholdi fountain at its center, showing a woman driving a chariot pulled by four plunging horses. Created by the same sculptor who built the Statue of Liberty, the fountain depicts…

The two uneven towers of the Église Saint-Nizier define the skyline of the Presqu'île. One spire remains a heavy, truncated stone square while the other reaches up in a slender, openwork flame style. This church occupies the site of the…

The Place des Jacobins centers on a white marble fountain topped by a statue of four famous Lyonnais artists. This square occupies the site where a Dominican convent stood until the French Revolution. When the monks were expelled, the city…

The Théâtre des Célestins is defined by the massive, curved facade of white stone facing the Place des Célestins, topped by an ornate pediment. This site has hosted performers since seventeen ninety-two, occupying the shell of a former…

The Passerelle Pierre-Truche connects the Presqu-ile to the opposite bank with a single, slender span of steel. It sits low over the Saone, designed to carry only pedestrians and cyclists across the water. The bridge takes its name from…

The Cathédrale Saint-Jean-Baptiste anchors the Old Town with a facade dominated by three massive, recessed portals filled with hundreds of small stone medallions. Construction dragged on for three centuries, beginning in the late twelfth…