Normandy, Brittany & the Best of the North_ With Paris (Fodor's) - Fodor's [84]
Place Stanislas.
With its severe, gleaming-white Classical facades given a touch of Rococo jollity by fanciful wrought gilt-iron railings, this perfectly proportioned square, stylishly repaved in honor of its 250th anniversary in 2005, may remind you of Versailles. The square is named for Stanislas Leszczynski, twice dethroned as king of Poland but offered the Duchy of Lorraine by Louis XV (his son-in-law) in 1736. Stanislas left a legacy of spectacular buildings, undertaken between 1751 and 1760 by architect Emmanuel Héré and ironwork genius Jean Lamour. The sculpture of Stanislas dominating the square went up in the 1830s, when the square was named after him. Framing the exit, and marking the divide between the Vieille Ville and the Ville Neuve (New Town), is the Arc de Triomphe, erected in the 1750s to honor Louis XV. The facade trumpets the gods of war and peace; Louis’s portrait is here. | Ville Royale | 54000.
WORTH NOTING IN THE HISTORIC CENTER
La Pépinière.
This picturesque, landscaped city park has labeled ancient trees, a rose garden, playgrounds, a carousel, and a small zoo. | Entrance off Pl. de la Carrière, Vieille Ville | 54000.
Place de la Carrière.
Spectacularly lined with pollarded trees and handsome 18th-century mansions (another successful collaboration between King Stanislas and Emmanuel Héré), this UNESCO World Heritage Site’s elegant rectangle leads from Place Stanislas to the colonnaded facade of the Palais du Gouvernement (Government Palace), former home of the governors of Lorraine. | Vieille Ville | 54000.
Porte de la Craffe.
A fairy-tale vision out of the late Middle Ages, this gate is all that remains of Nancy’s medieval fortifications. With its twin turrets looming at one end of the Grande-Rue, built in the 14th and 15th centuries, this arch served as a prison through the Revolution. Above the main portal is the Lorraine Cross, comprising a thistle and cross. | Vieille Ville | 54000.
St-Epvre.
A 275-foot spire towers over this splendid neo-Gothic church rebuilt in the 1860s. Most of the 2,800 square yards of stained glass were created by the Geyling workshop in Vienna; the chandeliers were made in Liège, Belgium; many carvings are the work of Margraff of Munich; the heaviest of the eight bells was cast in Budapest; and the organ, though manufactured by Merklin of Paris, was inaugurated in 1869 by Austrian composer Anton Bruckner. | Pl. du Général-de-Gaulle, Vieille Ville | 54000 | Daily 3:30–6.
ART NOUVEAU NANCY
Think Art Nouveau, and many will conjure up the rich salons of Paris’s Maxim’s restaurant, the lavender-hue Prague posters of Alphonse Mucha, and the stained-glass dragonflies and opalescent vases that, to this day, remain the darlings of such collectors as Barbra Streisand. All of that beauty was born, to a great extent, in 19th-century Nancy. Inspired and coordinated by the glass master Émile Gallé, the local movement was formalized in 1901 as L’École de Nancy—from here, it spread like wildfire through Europe, from Naples to Monte-Carlo to Prague. The ensuing flourish encompassed the floral pâte de verre (literally, “glass dough”) works of Antonin Daum and Gallé; the Tiffany-esque stained-glass windows of Jacques Gruber; the fluidity of Louis Majorelle’s furniture designs; and the sinuous architecture of Lucien Weissenburger, Émile André, and Eugène Vallin. Thanks to these artists, Nancy’s downtown architecture gives the impression of a living garden suspended above the sidewalks.
NANCY 1900
History has a curious way of having similar events take place at the same time in different places. The creation of the Art Nouveau (New Art) movement is one such event. Simultaneously emerging from Pre-Raphaelite, High Victorian, and the Arts and Crafts movement in England, it was also a synthesis of the Jugenstil (Youth style) movement in Germany; the Skonvirke movement in Denmark; the Mloda Polska (Young Poland) style in Poland; Secessionism