Twenty-four figures
Roman emperor to cinema's inventors — all Lyon on one façade.
Benoît Prieur — CC0 · This picture belongs to Xavier Caré. Please credit : Xavier Caré / Wikimedia Commons / CC-BY-SA. If you would like special permission to use, license, or purchase the image please contact me to negoti — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Mike is Michi — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Etienne Baudon — Public domain
From the 1980s the city and its art cooperatives turned blank walls into giant paintings to revive working quarters, and the Lyon school became an export — CitéCréation's works now stand from Berlin to Shanghai, with the originals here.
Claudius (an emperor born in Lyon), the Lumières (first film screening, 1895), Paul Bocuse (the century's most famous chef), Saint-Exupéry and his Prince, and Mère Brazier of Lyon's 'mothers' restaurants. The rest are the panel's pleasure.
Walk the Saône quay from Place des Terreaux (city hall and the Bartholdi fountain) south towards Vieux Lyon — the mural corners after minutes, and the Sunday-morning quay market makes the pass lovelier.
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On a building's corner facing the Saône, Lyon painted its family: twenty-four of its most famous children across two thousand years, leaning from painted windows and balconies — Emperor Claudius near the Lumière brothers who invented cinema, chef Paul Bocuse in the ground-floor restaurant, Saint-Exupéry with his Little Prince on the entrance steps. It is the work of Lyon's CitéCréation cooperative, which made the city a world capital of wall art, and the game is double: a trompe-l'œil persuading you the blank building is a real façade, and a face-guessing contest played before it daily. Its Saône-bank position makes it a natural stop walking between the Terreaux square and Vieux Lyon — and the quay itself is among the city's finest walks.
Roman emperor to cinema's inventors — all Lyon on one façade.
Cinema's inventors in their city — history's first film was shot in Lyon.
The legendary chef greeting from a painted ground-floor restaurant.
Corner of Rue de la Martinière and Quai Saint-Vincent, 69001 Lyon