Brotteaux

This guide to the Brotteaux quarter in Lyon opens with a puzzle: the neighborhood's own name, from old Lyon dialect, refers to the wooded islands the Rhone built and tore apart with every flood. It follows the district's first flimsy wooden railway station, built in eighteen fifty-eight to be dismantled if the river or war demanded it, and the architect and engineer who later chose to answer the river in stone and iron instead, with painted panels lining the halls inside.