Place Stanislas, Nancy — square
Nicolas Cornet · CC BY-SA 4.0

Place Stanislas, Nancy

  • 2 min read
  • 48.694° N 6.183° E
  • UNESCO World Heritage

Interesting facts

  • The original bronze statue of Louis XV was pulled down in 1792 and taken to Metz to be melted down for military use.
  • The square has changed its name repeatedly: Place Royale, Place du Peuple, Place Napoléon, Royale again, and finally Place Stanislas.
  • Some 400 workers laboured on the site at the same time, and the whole ensemble rose in only about three and a half years.
  • At the 1755 inauguration a piece of plaster fell from a cornice, and fear of an assassination attempt caused a brief panic.
  • After dark on inauguration day, casks of wine were set out by the fountains for the townspeople, while rain postponed the closing fireworks.
  • From 1958 to 1983 the square served as a car park with around 600 spaces.
  • The 2005 restoration relied on an anonymous painting found in 2003 at the Château de Pange, which showed the square's original layout.
  • A time capsule was buried beneath the square in April 2005, its spot marked by a star engraved in a paving stone in front of the statue.
  • Stanislas had to pay for the façades himself, because few townspeople in a Nancy of about 25,000 inhabitants would take on the building plots.
  • The buildings were first given flat roof terraces, which had to be changed around the time of the Revolution to suit Lorraine's climate.

Why it is worth it

Place Stanislas in Nancy is one of the most complete squares of the eighteenth century anywhere in Europe: an open rectangle of about 125 by 106 metres, paved in pale ochre stone with darker diagonals, framed on every side by façades of the same height and rhythm, and closed at its corners by screens of gilded wrought iron. It was built between 1752 and 1756 to the designs of Emmanuel Héré, and inaugurated in November 1755 as Place Royale.

Its patron was Stanisław Leszczyński, twice-deposed king of Poland, who was given the duchies of Lorraine and Bar for life in 1737 and whose daughter was married to Louis XV of France. The square was his homage to his son-in-law, and a statue of Louis XV stood at its centre until the Revolution pulled it down. Since 1831 the plinth has carried a bronze of Stanislas himself by Georges Jacquot. The ensemble had a purpose beyond flattery: it stitched together Nancy's medieval old town and the new town laid out in the seventeenth century, with the Arc Héré, a triumphal arch, opening north onto the long tree-lined Place de la Carrière.

The glory of the square is its ironwork by the locksmith Jean Lamour — railings, lanterns and gates dripping with gilded leaves, shells and crowns, which gave Nancy its nickname as the city of golden gates. In the corners, Lamour's grilles frame the rococo fountains of Neptune and Amphitrite by Barthélémy Guibal. Around the edge stand the Hôtel de Ville on the south side, the opera house and the Grand Hôtel de la Reine to the east, and the Musée des Beaux-Arts to the west. The square has been free of cars since 1983, the year it was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List together with Place de la Carrière and Place d'Alliance, and a restoration completed in 2005 for its 250th anniversary brought back the original paving pattern and freshened the gilding. Come after dark, when the gold catches the lamplight and the façades glow.

Getting there

The square lies at the heart of Nancy, the historic capital of Lorraine in north-eastern France, within easy walking distance of the old town. The nearest airport is Metz-Nancy-Lorraine Airport (ETZ), about 32 km away in a straight line. The square is pedestrian and open at all times.

On these lists

The Most Beautiful Places in Grand Est 8The Most Beautiful Places in France 179The Most Beautiful Squares in France 5The Most Beautiful UNESCO-Listed Squares 8The Most Beautiful Squares, Streets and Monuments in France 16The Most Beautiful Squares 25The Most Beautiful UNESCO World Heritage Sites in France 31The Most Beautiful UNESCO-Listed Squares, Streets and Monuments 33The Most Beautiful Squares, Streets and Monuments 173The Most Beautiful UNESCO World Heritage Sites 557

From the encyclopaedia

The Place Stanislas is a large pedestrianised square in the French city of Nancy, in the Lorraine historic region. Built between 1752 and 1756 on the orders of Stanislaus I, former King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, then Duke of Lorraine, the square is one of the oldest examples of an architecturally consistent monumental public square and is an excellent example of 18th-century urban architecture. Since 1983, the architectural ensemble comprising the Place Stanislas, the extension of its axis, the Place de la Carrière and the Place d'Alliance, has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

48.69361, 6.18333per Wikidata