La Cité Miroir

Guide : You are standing in a swimming pool that is no longer a swimming pool. The white pool lines are still there, but the water has gone: in its place, exhibitions, performances, debates and remembrance. La Cité Miroir kept the spirit of the Sauvenière Baths and turned it into a civic space. What strikes you first: the architecture or the metamorphosis?

Guide : The transformed swimming pool also hides a real performance hall. In the Francisco Ferrer Space, talks, concerts, screenings and performances happen at close range. Here, the two essential qualities are acoustics and proximity. What changes when a 260-seat hall refuses distance?

Guide : From the former stands, the building reads like a motionless ocean liner: powerful arches, glass walls, white railings, walkways and overhead light. Georges Dedoyard gave popular sport an architecture of real ambition. Look at these curves: do you still see the swimming pool, or already the cultural city?

Guide : This image shows the shelter before its restoration: raw, underground memory, almost buried beneath the former baths. Six alcoves could shelter up to 400 people during bombardments. Today, this listed place returns to La Cité Miroir's remembrance route. How do you look at a city from beneath it?

Guide : The Salon des Lumières lives up to its name: on one side the Boulevard de la Sauvenière and Mont-Saint-Martin, on the other the great pool hall. Between the city and the reinvented swimming pool, this quiet room hosts talks, meetings and receptions. What does a view change in the way we listen?