Every design for Villeurbanne

At the foot of the Gratte-Ciel, the two Art Deco towers that rise over the avenue Henri Barbusse, Villeurbanne feels like a city that built its own skyline on purpose. Mayor Lazare Goujon launched a vast public works programme in the years between the wars, and architect Môrice Leroux, with a contribution from Tony Garnier, gave the town an emblem that still turns heads.

The feeling here is one of neighbourhood loyalty. Villeurbanne sits on the left bank of the Rhône, right against Lyon, and outsiders often take it for part of the bigger city. Locals do not. Until the nineteenth century it was a patchwork of villages separated by fields, and those villages, Charpennes, Cusset, Croix-Luizet, Maisons-Neuves, survive as the districts people still name when they say where they are from. Industry brought textiles, then mechanics and chemicals, and workers arrived from all over, many from Italy. Their children and grandchildren grew up between the factories and the parks, and the town kept its working-class spirit as it grew.

The map shows the Rhône to the north, the Parc de la Tête-d'Or along the western edge and the old village names in between. For anyone who grew up here, those are the streets of school runs, first jobs and Saturday afternoons in the Parc du Centre.