Mur des Canuts
Twelve-hundred-square-meter trompe l'oeil mural of an imaginary street, repainted every decade since it was created.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to the Mur des Canuts in Lyon uncovers the story behind Europe's largest trompe l'oeil, a fake street painted onto a blank stone wall in Croix-Rousse by the art students of Cite de Creation in 1987, then quietly repainted in 1997 and 2013 so its residents seem to age in real time. It traces why this corner of the neighborhood was chosen, reaching back to the silk weavers, the canuts, who marched here under a black flag in November 1831 and rose again in 1834. Look for the painted girl on the mural to see just how long this street has been quietly aging.
This audio guide was created using AI.
Similar places
Fresque des Lyonnais
Six-story trompe-l'oeil facade of thirty painted balconies honoring two thousand years of local notables.
Pentes de la Croix Rousse
Steep silk-weavers' district of hidden passageways once used to smuggle fabric, revolutionaries and resistance fighters alike.
Association Soierie Vivante
Working silk-trim workshop with carved walnut Jacquard looms, preserved exactly as weavers left it.
Cité Musée Tony Garnier
Open-air gallery of twenty-four monumental murals wrapped around a 1920s housing estate.
La Maison des Canuts
Working silk museum with live Jacquard loom demonstrations and the story of the weavers' nineteenth-century revolts.
La Croix-Rousse
Silk-weavers' hillside laced with hidden passages once used to dodge soldiers and Nazi patrols.