Place de la Bourse

A long run of pale stone facades opens straight onto the Garonne, and in front of it a thin sheet of water lying on the paving doubles every pilaster and roofline. The Place de la Bourse in Bordeaux was the first royal square in France to be laid out open to a river rather than enclosed by buildings, and it set the tone for the long eighteenth-century waterfront that still defines the city.

The idea came from Claude Boucher, the royal intendant appointed in 1720, who wanted to break through the city's decaying medieval walls and give Bordeaux a dignified face towards the river. Some twenty houses and ten stalls were cleared and about 150 metres of rampart came down. The first royal architect, Jacques Gabriel, drew the ordered facades, consciously echoing the Place Vendôme in Paris, designed by his relative and teacher Jules Hardouin-Mansart. A bronze equestrian statue of Louis XV by Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne was unveiled at the centre in August 1743. After Gabriel's death in 1742 his son Ange-Jacques Gabriel, who succeeded him as the king's architect, carried the work forward: the Palais de la Bourse on the north side was finished in 1749, and the central pavilion, built under André Portier, completed the ensemble in 1755. On the south side stands the former Hôtel des Fermes, now the regional customs headquarters and the National Customs Museum. The sculpted pediments show Minerva protecting the arts and Mercury favouring the city's trade, and the keystones above the windows carry a gallery of carved masks, including faces that refer to the colonial trade and the slave trade on which much of the port's eighteenth-century wealth was built.

The square changed names with each regime. During the Revolution the king's statue was pulled down in 1792 and melted for cannon, and the Place Royale became the Place de la Liberté; it was briefly Place Impériale under Napoleon and took its present name in 1848. Since 1869 the centre has been occupied by the Fountain of the Three Graces, designed by Louis Visconti and sculpted by Charles Gumery. In the twentieth century the square served as a car park; in 2006, as part of Michel Corajoud's redesign of the quays, the Miroir d'eau was created opposite, a shallow reflecting pool of about 3,450 square metres, said to be the largest of its kind. The historic port of Bordeaux, the Port of the Moon, has been on the UNESCO World Heritage List since 2007.

Getting there

The square lies on the left bank of the Garonne in central Bordeaux, and Bordeaux tram lines C, D and E stop in the middle of it at Place de la Bourse. Bordeaux–Mérignac Airport (BOD) is about 12 km away.