Thanks to the work of organizations such as Cité Création, Lyon’s murals have become an international symbol of the city. In the more than 30 years since the public art project began, Lyon artists and collectives have painted more than 400 walls around the city and the world.
The "Mur des Canuts" in Boulevard des Canuts, in Lyon’s fourth arrondissement, is a large trompe-l’oeil of more than 1,200 square meters. This artistic technique employs realistic imagery to create the optical illusion that painted objects exist in three dimensions. Originally painted in 1987, it is retouched every ten years to reflect changes in the neighborhood. In the mural, two buildings frame a central staircase that leads to a group of town houses. The scenes inside the windows and storefronts, as well as the human figures, are also renewed.
The mural owes its name to the "canuts", weavers who worked silk on Jacquard looms and who lived mostly in the Croix-Rousse district in the 19th century.
