As fake as houses

Back in October, I was fascinated to read about three imaginary homes in a post on our sister blog, Invisible Paris.

Never having considered the possibility of buildings being anything other than what they appeared to be, I found the idea of pretend houses both amusing and intriguing. 

Could there, I wondered, also be artificial abodes in Lyon?

To my immense surprise, I discovered that there were at least five of them in my adopted home town on the peninsula between the Rivers Rhône and Saône. Two of these are in the 4th arrondissement, the other three in the 1st.

Seeing Italy

Uh-oh!

Lyon is some 160 kilometres from Chamonix, the ski resort on the Italian-French border. Mont Blanc, the mountain that separates the two countries at this point, is the highest not only in France, but in all the Alps, topping out at 4810 metres above mean sea level.

Although the Swiss border is much closer than the Italian one (Geneva is just 110km away), you can sometimes see Mont Blanc from Lyon's Fourvière hill, Croix-Rousse and other higher elevations, like the Mont d'Or just to the north-west.

On particularly clear days, you are treated to a whole mountain range stretching along the Italian border, and Mont Blanc itself appears to be just a few miles beyond the city limits. However, pretty as the sight is, it's not a good omen. 

Lyonnais mystery no. 2

The grand Louis XIII-style building situated at 8 Rue Godefroy in the upmarket 6th arrondissement is completely unique in Lyon and considered one of the city's most important hôtels particulier (mansions). Yet it isn't a stop on any of the innumerable guided tours. Nor is it featured in any of the guidebooks that I've come across. It is therefore theoretically ideal for inclusion on the Invisible Lyon blog.

However, when one of my readers asked me to look into its past, I soon found that this was a lot easier said than done.

Birdy Kids

Lyon is a cultural and artistic hub second only to Paris in France. Fabulous architecture aside, it has well over 200 large-scale frescoes and trompe-l’œil, more than 60 of which were painted by the prolific Cité Création alone. On alternate years Lyon holds the Biennale d'Art Contemporain, currently in its 12th edition, and it runs the hugely popular annual Lumière international film festival, which this year featured Quentin Tarantino.

Take a walk around the city, and it's clear to see that Lyon also has a vibrant and active street art scene. I already wrote about one goldmine of street art in the disused factories along Rue Feuillat. I've also photographed a lot of noteworthy street art for the Invisible Lyon Instagram account.

However, the most omnipresent and instantly recognisable street art in Lyon stems from a three-man collective that calls itself Birdy Kids. Last week I interviewed the group's unofficial spokesman: Guillaume.

Gare des Brotteaux

A perfectly restored Haussmannian building with an ornate sandstone facade, huge bay windows, a curved roof and a large, central clock stands on Boulevard Jules Favre in Lyon's swanky 6th arrondissement. This is the former Gare des Brotteaux. 
 
The building's resemblance to the Gare d'Orsay in Paris is no coincidence, because the two were built in the same era. But this wasn't the first railway station on the site.

Ahmed the gargoyle

Like all monuments exposed to the perils of pollution, the Cathédral St. Jean-Baptiste in Lyon is constantly having to be cleaned and renovated. Even though the cleaning is done by laser nowadays rather than high-pressure water, which tended to scratch off yet more of the fine sandstone, sometimes the delicate centuries-old structures are so worn away by acid rain that they need to be replaced completely.

In 2010, it was decided that a gargoyle on the north wall of the cathedral - on the left-hand side if you're facing the front - had reached the "point of no return". Sculptor Emmanuel Fourchet was therefore given the task of designing and producing a suitable statue that might take its place. 

Rue Feuillat

A long wall interspersed by many tall windows and just as many rainwater pipes stretches most of the way along Rue Feuillat between Cours Albert Thomas and Avenue Lacassagne in the 3rd Arrondisement. Halfway down, an imposing stone gate with intricate ironwork and stained-glass clear denotes what must once have been the main entrance. Peering through the smashed safety glass of the windows, you can still see an elaborate iron roof and get a sense that this was once something big.

Big it was indeed. The stepped walls enclose a behemoth of a site spanning 75,000m² and employing nearly two thousand people in its heyday. For this is the oldest existing car factory in Lyon, although the grounds have changed hands many times over the last century.