Ambition
Reinventing La Part-Dieu
From the railway station to the Crayon (Pencil) Tower, La Part-Dieu is both a thriving centre and gateway to the Lyon Metropolis. For 40 years, the district has driven the Metropolis’s influence in Europe and abroad. A symbol of urban growth in the 1970s, it is now the second largest tertiary district in France, but also a major nerve centre, including the leading interchange rail station in Europe.
Lyon Metropolis has initiated an ambitious project to give La Part-Dieu every opportunity to become a permanently attractive area where it is pleasant to live. It is piloted by a dedicated organisation, known as the SPL Lyon Part-Dieu, and designed by the multidisciplinary staff of AUC architects, led by François Decoster.
The goal of this long term project is to base La Part-Dieu on a balanced respectful vision of the existing district and to offer it a new lease of life. A model of large-scale rejuvenation, it proposes an increased and better calibrated tertiary offer, combined with a strong ambition in relation to housing and collective spaces. Showcase for the city of the future, the Lyon Part-Dieu project creates a space favouring economic expansion, but also a living, free-moving, pleasant, greener, and more vibrant district with improved links to the city.
The aim is to replace a district that people pass through with a destination in which it is a real pleasure to stay, and to reconcile a pleasurable city with high-performance, in the centre of a European metropolis.
The future La Part-Dieu district will be more functional, vibrant and pleasant to live in and it represents the kind of project all cities should be committed to developing in that it integrates growth and quality of life harmoniously.
