Learn more about Part-Dieu...

The Part-Dieu neighborhood, located in the 3^rd District of Lyon (69003), is considered as Lyon's second "downtown", after the Presqu'île. This neighborhood is today France's second-largest business district, after La Défense in Paris.

Located on the left bank of the Rhône, this neighborhood is home to a shopping mall and the Part-Dieu train station.

At night, Part-Dieu offers a stunning panorama of light. The brightly lit orange roof of the main tower, called the crayon (‘pencil'), the front of the shopping center and the advertising at the station lend this neighborhood a modern feel.

It is a neighborhood that has seen most of its modern facilities conducted in the 1960s after the transfer to the city of land that housed military barracks Cuirassiers. Later in time, the site was occupied by unhealthy land and the name of "Part-Dieu" of the Middle Ages meaning as "property of God." The urbanization of the area of nineteenth century at the time of linking the town of La Guillotière than Lyon.

Among the buildings came enrich the architectural heritage of the area in its western part are the Lyon Auditorium Maurice Ravel. Located near the tower of Crédit Lyonnais, is a building dating from 1975, due to the architects Charles and Henry Delfa Pottier. Building concrete forms of coquille Saint-Jacques is both architectural curiosity that may surprise but also the center of an intense musical activity around the Orchestra National de Lyon and its current director Jun Märkl.

Near the Halles de Lyon Paul Bocuse, are today the mecca of gastronomy Lyon thanks to its merchants and artisans who attracts gourmands around the passion for excellence.

Leaving the terminal which Garibaldi Street in the west this area we will be heading to the east to the gare de la Part-Dieu after discovering the places of Lyon and the inhabitants of the region: the Center for Commercial Part-Dieu, one of the biggest in France, the City Library.

The "Part-Dieu" is also the name of the train station built in 1978 and which replaced the station nearby Brotteaux and somehow, in part, the train station Perrache missing decommitments for traffic growing since the opening of the TGV Paris-Lyon in 1981. The presence of this station has not been any advantage to this neighborhood that has become a business center that concentrates 500 000m ² of offices, 20 000, 1 000 hotel rooms and many services.

You're living in this neighborhood, tourists or businessmen, you will not fail to note, near the mall and opposite the railway station, the tower under construction with delivery scheduled for 2009. This is the Oxygène Tower, 115 meters high and is designed in part to a commercial and party offices. Designed by the firm Arte Charpentier, the sections already built can judge the architectural uniqueness of this building.