Cour des Voraces

In front of you is the most photographed staircase in Lyon. The building went up around 1840 and is a perfect example of canut architecture: ceilings almost four metres high to fit the big Jacquard looms, tall windows to let in light, and a traboule running through the block to the Montée Saint-Sébastien and Rue Imbert-Colomès.

1The hill that works

In the early 19th century, silk fed half of Lyon. Some four hundred merchants, the 'soyeux', ordered the cloth; thousands of master weavers, the canuts, worked at home with their journeymen and apprentices. When prices fell, the canuts demanded a minimum rate. The prefect agreed to it in October 1831, but many manufacturers refused to apply it.

On 21 November 1831, hundreds of weavers marched down from the Croix-Rousse by the Montée de la Grande-Côte. Fighting went on for days and the insurgents took control of the city before the army retook it in December. According to accounts of the time, their banners read: 'Live working or die fighting'. There were further uprisings in 1834 and 1848.

The origin of the name Voraces, a workers' group of 1848, is disputed: some link it to a mutual society, others to complaints about the shrinking size of wine jugs.

During the Second World War, the hill's traboules served the Resistance. About fifteen minutes away, on Boulevard des Canuts, the huge Mur des Canuts paints the life of the district; check its condition, as it has had safety works since 2025.

2What to look for

• The outdoor staircase, with free-standing flights, listed as a historic monument.
• The tall windows of the workshops.
• The plaque honouring the canuts' struggle.