With a height of 85.9 metres and weight of 210 tons, the "metallic tower" was built between 1892 and 1894 by a member of the public known as Mr Gay.
Its construction was assisted by the local council who wanted to build a secular monument to counterbalance the Catholic cathedral Basilica of Fourvière which is less than a hundred metres away.
Tour métallique de Fourvière
During the Exposition universelle of 1914 in
Lyon it had a restaurant and an elevator capable of taking 22 people up to the summit. Although used as an observation tower until November 1, 1953, nowadays it serves as a television tower and is not accessible to the public. At 372m, it is the highest point in Lyon.
Sainte Marie de La Tourette
Sainte Marie de La Tourette is a Dominican priory in a valley near Lyon, France designed by the architect Le Corbusier and constructed between 1956 and 1960.
View of the South face of La Tourette in 2001La Tourette is considered one of the more important buildings of the late Modernist style.
It was under the instigation of Reverend Father Couturier that the Dominicans of Lyon have charged Le Corbusier with the task of bringing into being at Eveux-sur-Arbresle, near Lyon, the Convent of La Tourette, in the midst of nature, located in a small vale that opens out onto the forest.
The buildings contain a hundred sleeping rooms for teachers and students, study halls, a hall for work and one for recreation, a library and a refectory. Next comes the church where the monks carry on alone (on occasion in the presence of several of the faithful).
Finally, the circulation connects all the parts in particular those which appear in a new form (the achievement of the traditional cloister form is rendered impossible here by the slope of terrain).
View of the South face of La Tourette in 2001
On two levels, the loggias crowning the building (one for each acoustically-isolated monk's cell) form brise-soleil. The study halls, work and recreation halls, as well as the library occupy the upper-level.
Below are the refectory and the cloister in the form of a cross leading to the church. And then come the piles carrying the four convent buildings rising from the slope of the terrain left in its original condition, without terracing.
The structural frame is of rough reinforced concrete. The panes of glass located on the three exterior faces achieve, for the first time, the system called "the undulatory glass surface", which is also applied to the Secretariat at Chandigarh.
On the other hand, in the garden-court of the cloister, the fenestration is composed of large concrete elements reaching from floor to ceiling, perforated with glazed voids and separated from one another by "ventilators": vertical slits covered by metal mosquito netting and furnished with a pivoting shutter.
The corridors leading to the dwelling cells are lit by a horizontal opening located under the ceiling. Though still functioning for a greatly-reduced population of monks, La Tourette has become something of a pilgrimage site for students of architecture. Overnight stays can be arranged in the unused cells.
At the Couvent de la Tourette (1960), Le Corbusier found an echo, in an architectural project, of the personal principles of self-denial and monastic simplicity that he himself adhered to.
Built as a Chapel, residence and place of learning for Dominican friars, the monastery groups around a central courtyard a U-shaped mass, and the court is closed off by the chapel at the end.
At La Tourette many aspects of Corbusier's developed architectural vocabulary are visible – the vertical brise-soleils used with effect in India, light-cannons piercing solid masonry walls, and window-openings separated by Modulor-controlled vertical divisions.
In contrast with Ronchamp, the building does not crown and complement the site, but instead dominates the landscape composition.
If there is harmony, it is in the finishes that in their roughness and near-brutality betray some empathy with the life of a monk. La Tourette makes no claim to the effete bourgeois lifestyle embodied at the Villa Savoye; its antecedents, if anything, are the Greek monasteries of Mount Athos and an almost mythological history.
Saint-Exupéry International Airport
Saint-Exupéry International Airport (IATA: LYS, ICAO: LFLL) (formerly Lyon Satolas Airport) is an airport located near Lyon, France.
It lies in Colombier-Saugnieu, 20 km to the east of Lyon. Its two runways are aligned north-south. It is an important transport facility for the entire Rhône-Alpes region.
Coach links connect the airport with the centre of Lyon and other towns in the area including Chambéry and Grenoble, where airport capacity is limited by surrounding mountains.
Lyon Satolas airport was inaugurated by President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing on 12 April 1975 and welcomed its first passengers a week later. It was designed to replace the old Lyon Bron airport which could not be extended as it lay in an urban area.
In 1994 a high-speed rail link brought the TGV to the airport, providing direct trains to Paris and Marseille. The fan-shaped canopy above the station is the airport's most notable architectural feature.
In 2000 the airport was renamed in honour of Lyonnais aviation pioneer and writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. In 2005, the airport has welcome more than 6,5 million passengers, mostly on international lines, which makes it France fourth busiest airport after Charles de Gaulle, Orly and Nice airports.
In the future, the airport should be connected to the center of Lyon by a new express tram line, called Leslys.
Airline Services
The following airlines fly to Saint-Exupéry International Airport:
- Air Algerie
- Air France
- Air Lib
- Air Littoral
- Air Malta
- Air Nostrum
- Air Senegal International
- Alitalia
- Antinea Airlines
- Austrian Airlines
- Blue Air
- Brit Air
- British Airways
- British Airways Citiexpress
- Corsair
- Czech Airlines
- easyJet
- Gofly.com
- Hex'Air
- Iberia Airlines
- Khalifa Airways
- KLM Cityhopper
- LOT Polish
- Lufthansa
- Portugalia
- Royal Air Maroc
- SN Brussels
- Thomsonfly
- Tunisair
- Turkish Airlines
Cathédrale Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Lyon
The Cathédrale Saint-Jean is a cathedral in Lyon. The cathedral also has an astronomical clock from the 14th century. Until the construction of the Basilica Notre Dame de Fourvière, it was the pre-eminent cathedral in Lyon.
Interior
The Basilica Notre-Dame de Fourvière is a basilica in Lyon. It was built between 1872 and 1896 in a very eclectic style: an austere exterior and luxuriously decorated interior. It features fine mosaics, superb stained glass, and a crypt of Saint-Joseph. Visible from many points within the city, it is in one of Lyon's major landmarks.
The main entry to the basilica, at the rear
Credits
: This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the
Wikipedia article
"Lyon".
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