Miroir d'eau
Shallow granite reflecting pool that turns an eighteenth-century tax office into a mirror of sky.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to the Miroir d'eau in Bordeaux starts on the first of July, seventeen thirty-eight, when tax clerks locked the doors of a brand-new customs hall built for the Ferme Generale, the private financiers who collected the French crown's duties on this very spot. It traces how architects Jacques and Ange-Jacques Gabriel dressed that tax office and the merchants' exchange across the water in matching facades, so trade and taxation faced each other wearing the same elegant mask. You'll hear how two centuries of ledgers and gates gave way to a parking lot, and what the city eventually chose to lay down in its place. Stand at the water's edge and watch the stone across the river double itself.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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