An odd collection of buildings on the corner of Avenue Rockefeller and Boulevard Pinel in the 8th arrondissement presented me with my first Lyonnais mystery. Squat, rectangular and almost windowless, these three strange, flat-roofed buildings seemed so out of place, so different from the surrounding architecture, that they immediately drew my attention.
I'd first noticed them when I looked out of my hotel window. There, at the far end of a fenced-off sort of no-man's-land of tall grass next to the Grand Mosque in the Quartier Mermoz, stood three tall buildings, each about the length and breadth of a football pitch and two floors high, with what looked like watchtowers and aerial walkways running between them. Each was very different in its own way, though they clearly belonged together. But what the Guignol could they be?
I'd first noticed them when I looked out of my hotel window. There, at the far end of a fenced-off sort of no-man's-land of tall grass next to the Grand Mosque in the Quartier Mermoz, stood three tall buildings, each about the length and breadth of a football pitch and two floors high, with what looked like watchtowers and aerial walkways running between them. Each was very different in its own way, though they clearly belonged together. But what the Guignol could they be?
