Place des Terreaux

The Place des Terreaux (French pronunciation: [plas de tɛʁo] ⓘ) is a square located in the centre of Lyon, France, on the Presqu'île between the Rhône and the Saône rivers, at the foot of the hill of La Croix-Rousse in the 1st arrondissement.

The square has these borders: 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 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); de Forez intervened by force of arms in 1208, and peace returned through the intervention of Pope Innocent III.

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.

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.

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.

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.