Mériadeck
Brutalist business district of raised concrete walkways, built over a razed working-class quarter.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to Mériadeck in Bordeaux traces the district back to 1769, when the city's new archbishop, Ferdinand-Maximilien de Rohan, drained a stretch of marshland hoping to sell it off for quick profit. The buyers who actually came were cobblers, laundresses, market traders and cabaret keepers, who built a close-knit working quarter that took the archbishop's own name. You'll hear how that reputation turned against the neighborhood by the mid-twentieth century, as officials under mayor Jacques Chaban-Delmas began quietly clearing it out street by street. Look up at the striated concrete around you while you listen for what replaced it.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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