The Place des Terreaux is a square located in the centre of
Lyon
Lyon,, ; Occitan: ''Lion'', hist. ''Lionés'' also spelled in English as Lyons, is the third-largest city and second-largest metropolitan area of France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of t ...
,
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
, on the
Presqu'île
The Presqu'île (literally a combination of the French words "presque" and "île" for almost and island, respectively)''Le petit Robert de la langue française'' 2007 is the central part of the City of Lyon, France. Extending from the foot of th ...
between the
Rhône
The Rhône ( , ; wae, Rotten ; frp, Rôno ; oc, Ròse ) is a major river in France and Switzerland, rising in the Alps and flowing west and south through Lake Geneva and southeastern France before discharging into the Mediterranean Sea. At Ar ...
and the
Saône
The Saône ( , ; frp, Sona; lat, Arar) is a river in eastern France. It is a right tributary of the Rhône, rising at Vioménil in the Vosges department and joining the Rhône in Lyon, at the southern end of the Presqu'île.
The name deri ...
rivers, at the foot of the hill of
La Croix-Rousse
La Croix-Rousse is a hill high in the city of Lyon, France, as well as the name of a neighborhood located on this hill. The neighborhood is divided into les pentes (slopes, belonging to the city's 1st arrondissement) and le plateau (atop the hil ...
in the
1st arrondissement. It borders both the
Hôtel de Ville and
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon
The Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon (french: Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon) is a municipal museum of fine arts in the French city of Lyon. Located near the Place des Terreaux, it is housed in a former Benedictine convent which was active during the 1 ...
. The square belongs to the zone classified as a
World Heritage Site
A World Heritage Site is a landmark or area with legal protection by an international convention administered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). World Heritage Sites are designated by UNESCO for h ...
by UNESCO.
Location
The square has these borders:
* On the east by the
Lyon City Hall
Lyon,, ; Occitan: ''Lion'', hist. ''Lionés'' also spelled in English as Lyons, is the third-largest city and second-largest metropolitan area of France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of t ...
* On the south by the Palais Saint-Pierre and the
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon
The Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon (french: Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon) is a municipal museum of fine arts in the French city of Lyon. Located near the Place des Terreaux, it is housed in a former Benedictine convent which was active during the 1 ...
* On the west by a building through a gallery
* On the north by civilian buildings marking the beginning of the slopes of the
La Croix-Rousse
La Croix-Rousse is a hill high in the city of Lyon, France, as well as the name of a neighborhood located on this hill. The neighborhood is divided into les pentes (slopes, belonging to the city's 1st arrondissement) and le plateau (atop the hil ...
History
The front wall of the square
![Terreaux 1575](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/54/Terreaux_1575.jpg)
In 1206, associations of merchants of Lyon ran to Archbishop Renaud II de Forez, who failed to comply with the charter signed in 1195 by violating the agreements made in respect of taxes on goods. To protect the village of Saint-Nizier from ecclesiastical power, the bourgeois of Lyon then decided to raise a wall at the foot of the hill of Saint-Sébastien (slope of the Croix-Rousse) and a tower on the
Saône
The Saône ( , ; frp, Sona; lat, Arar) is a river in eastern France. It is a right tributary of the Rhône, rising at Vioménil in the Vosges department and joining the Rhône in Lyon, at the southern end of the Presqu'île.
The name deri ...
to control the bridge of the Exchange, which was the sole passage between Saint-Nizier and Saint-Jean (a parish on the west side of the Saône, in
Vieux Lyon
The Vieux Lyon ( en, Old Lyon) is the largest Renaissance district of Lyon. In 1964, Vieux-Lyon, the city's oldest district, became the first site in France to be protected under the Malraux law to protect France's cultural sites. Covering an ar ...
); de Forez intervened by force of arms in 1208, and peace returned through the intervention of
Pope Innocent III
Pope Innocent III ( la, Innocentius III; 1160 or 1161 – 16 July 1216), born Lotario dei Conti di Segni (anglicized as Lothar of Segni), was the head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 8 January 1198 to his death in 16 J ...
.
However, Renaud de Forez and his successors continued the works undertaken by the bourgeois of Lyon, in order to protect the city from a potential attack by the
Dombes
The Dombes (; Arpitan: Domba) is an area in eastern France, once an independent municipality, formerly part of the province of Burgundy, and now a district comprised in the department of Ain, and bounded on the west by the Saône River, on th ...
. A two-metre-thick and ten-metre-high new wall was built between the Saône and Rhône. Approximately 500 metres long, this enclosure was pierced by two gates defended by
drawbridge
A drawbridge or draw-bridge is a type of moveable bridge typically at the entrance to a castle or tower surrounded by a moat. In some forms of English, including American English, the word ''drawbridge'' commonly refers to all types of moveable ...
s (la Porte de la Pêcherie o the Saône et la porte de la Lanterne) and protected by ten towers. A crenelated walk and five stone booths allowed soldiers to watch at the top. The main wall was separated by a 22-metre ditch from another two-metre wall located to the north. In the fourteenth century, a third structure built into the slope was added, then, at the beginning of the 15th century, a new structure was built on the Saint Sébastien hilltop, consisting of a mound of earth protected by wood towers. In case of siege, the ditch, which was called ''Terralia nova'' (Fossés of Terreaux) or Fossés de la Lanterne, could be filled with water. This one entered when needed in a succession of basins, called the Neyron channel, dug laterally to the Rhone.
Under normal circumstances, the crossbowmen, then culverin men used ditches as a training location, first on the Saône side, then from 1533 on the Rhône side.
The garden and the square
![Prequile lyon 1853](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3d/Prequile_lyon_1853.jpg)
In the 16th century, the walls crumbled. In 1538, the demolition of the enclosure was initiated. The ditch located on the Saône side was filled later to build the Boucherie de la Lanterne. In 1555, the nuns of the convent Saint-Pierre were allowed to use the stones of the wall to repair the monastery. In 1578, the lands of the current Place des Terreaux were filled, and in 1617, the former ditch disappeared with the development of the gardens of city hall on which the Opera stand today.
Between 1646 and 1651,
Simon Maupin
Simon Maupin (before 1625 in Longueau - 10 October 1668 in Lyon) was a French architect.
Biography
In 1625, he engraved his ''Plan de Lyon''.''Nouvelle biographie générale depuis les temps les plus reculés jusqu'à nos jours'', Hoefer (Jean C ...
built on the eastern side of the square the Hôtel de ville de Lyon, rebuilt by
Jules Hardouin-Mansart
Jules Hardouin-Mansart (; 16 April 1646 – 11 May 1708) was a French Baroque architect and builder whose major work included the Place des Victoires (1684–1690); Place Vendôme (1690); the domed chapel of Les Invalides (1690), and the Grand T ...
, after the fire of 1674. In the 17th century, the nuns of Saint-Pierre rebuilt their convent, which became in 1803 the
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon
The Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon (french: Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon) is a municipal museum of fine arts in the French city of Lyon. Located near the Place des Terreaux, it is housed in a former Benedictine convent which was active during the 1 ...
.
On this square was beheaded the
Henri Coiffier de Ruzé, Marquis of Cinq-Mars
Henri Coiffier de Ruzé, Marquis of Cinq-Mars (1620 – 12 September 1642) was a favourite of King Louis XIII of France, who led the last and most nearly successful of many conspiracies against the Cardinal Richelieu, the king's powerful f ...
, who was a conspirator against Richelieu. During the
French Revolution
The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are considere ...
, the
guillotine
A guillotine is an apparatus designed for efficiently carrying out executions by beheading. The device consists of a tall, upright frame with a weighted and angled blade suspended at the top. The condemned person is secured with stocks at th ...
was installed and running at full speed during the tenure of Marie Joseph Chalier. After the
siege of Lyon
The siege of Lyon occurred on 9 August to 9 October 1793 when French Republican forces laid siege and captured the city of Lyon, which was the centre of a revolt against the French government during the War of the First Coalition.
Historical b ...
, 79 people were also beheaded.
In the second half of the 19th century, access to the site was expanded to accommodate the restructuring plan of the peninsula led by
Claude-Marius Vaïsse
Claude-Marius Vaïsse (8 July 1799 – 8 August 1864) was a French lawyer who joined the administration of the July Monarchy. During the French Second Republic he was briefly Minister of the Interior. Under the Second French Empire he was appointed ...
. In 1855, the passage of Terreaux was opened between the square and the Lanterne street. The prefect also planned to drill a new street in the north axis of the Palais Saint-Pierre, but this project was never realized.
At the center of the square, the municipal officials inaugurated on 22 September 1891 an allegorical fountain of the Saône, made by
Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi
Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi ( , ; 2 August 1834 – 4 October 1904) was a French sculptor and painter. He is best known for designing ''Liberty Enlightening the World'', commonly known as the Statue of Liberty.
Early life and education
Barthold ...
. The sculpted group called Char triomphant de la Garonne represents the
Garonne
The Garonne (, also , ; Occitan, Catalan, Basque, and es, Garona, ; la, Garumna
or ) is a river of southwest France and northern Spain. It flows from the central Spanish Pyrenees to the Gironde estuary at the French port of Bordeaux – a ...
and its four tributaries jumping into the ocean, all of which are symbolized by a woman leading a
Quadriga
A () is a car or chariot drawn by four horses abreast and favoured for chariot racing in Classical Antiquity and the Roman Empire until the Late Middle Ages. The word derives from the Latin contraction of , from ': four, and ': yoke.
The four- ...
. After the 1889
Exposition Universelle, the monument became too expensive for the city of
Bordeaux
Bordeaux ( , ; Gascon oc, Bordèu ; eu, Bordele; it, Bordò; es, Burdeos) is a port city on the river Garonne in the Gironde department, Southwestern France. It is the capital of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, as well as the prefectur ...
and was bought in 1890 by the Mayor of Lyon, Antoine Gailleton.
The square was redeveloped in 1994 by architect and urban planner Christian Drevet and artist
Daniel Buren, including an orthogonal rotation of 69 jets of water lined with 14 pillars. To build the underground parking of the square, the fountain was originally located in front of city hall, then moved to its current location in the axis of the palace Saint-Pierre.
On 29 September 1995, the square was classified as a
monument historique
''Monument historique'' () is a designation given to some national heritage sites in France. It may also refer to the state procedure in France by which National Heritage protection is extended to a building, a specific part of a building, a coll ...
.
During the cold winter of 2012, the fountain situated in Place des Terreaux froze.
Photos
Image:Façade de l'Hôtel de Ville de Lyon.JPG, The Lyon City Hall
Lyon,, ; Occitan: ''Lion'', hist. ''Lionés'' also spelled in English as Lyons, is the third-largest city and second-largest metropolitan area of France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of t ...
Image:Place des Terreaux 2002.JPG, The Fontaine Bartholdi under the snow
Image:Entrée du Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon.JPG, Entry of the palais Saint-Pierre (Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon
The Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon (french: Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon) is a municipal museum of fine arts in the French city of Lyon. Located near the Place des Terreaux, it is housed in a former Benedictine convent which was active during the 1 ...
)
Image:L'Hôtel de Ville de Lyon.jpg, The city hall of Lyon illuminated
See also
*
List of streets and squares in Lyon
References
External links
*
History of the place
{{DEFAULTSORT:Place Des Terreaux
1st arrondissement of Lyon
Terreaux
World Heritage Sites in France