Place des Terreaux and the Bartholdi Fountain

Why is it significant?

Step into the breathtaking grandeur of Place des Terreaux, the historic public forum anchoring the northern boundary of the Presqu'île at the foot of the Croix-Rousse slopes.

Key Facts

Open the walk

Step into the breathtaking grandeur of Place des Terreaux, the historic public forum anchoring the northern boundary of the Presqu'île at the foot of the Croix-Rousse slopes. Historically created in the seventeenth century over the filled ditches or terreaux of the old medieval town wall, this vast square is framed on the south by the magnificent Palais Saint-Pierre—an immense seventeenth-century Benedictine convent that now houses the Musée des Beaux-Arts, France's finest art museum outside Paris. Dominating the northern edge of the square is the monumental Fontaine Bartholdi, a twenty-one-ton lead sculpture created by Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi, the celebrated sculptor of New York's Statue of Liberty. Unveiled here in 1892, this theatrical masterpiece depicts the allegorical figure of France seated atop a triumphal chariot guiding four leaping, foaming horses that represent the four major rivers galloping toward the ocean. In 1994, artist Daniel Buren and architect Christian Drevet repaved the square with a geometric grid of dark and light granite slabs animated by sixty-nine computerized fountain jets that rise from the pavement. The theatrical setting dazzles the senses.

Look closely at the snorting nostrils of Bartholdi's lead horses: water mist sprays continuously from their nostrils, creating the thrilling illusion of galloping stallions churning through river rapids with steam billowing from their breath.

Bartholdi originally designed this magnificent fountain in 1857 for the city of Bordeaux: when Bordeaux deemed it too expensive, the visionary consuls of Lyon eagerly purchased the masterwork in 1889 to celebrate the French Revolution centennial.

Notice the sixty-nine small ground water jets: Buren designed them to playfully activate in dancing sequences, mirroring the subterranean water conduits that have flowed beneath this former marshland since antiquity.

Walk east across the square to admire the classical facade of the Hôtel de Ville and the adjoining Opéra de Lyon.