Tourism Office / Link architectes

Nearly 2,000 years ago, Lugdunum (Lyon) was mainly located on the hill of Fourvière. In order to provide drinking water to the entire city, four aqueducts transported water from the nearby mountain ranges (Mont d'Or, Monts du Lyonnais, Pilat Massif) to the capital of Roman Gaul. The Gier aqueduct was by far the longest (over 80 km) and the most technically complex, given the geography it traversed. Its most spectacular legacy today is the alignment of 72 arches, which powerfully emerge at the Plat de l'Air site, to the north of the town of Chaponost. It is here, in direct contact with one of the last tangible remnants of the Roman memory of the area, that the Vallée du Garon Community of Municipalities chose to establish a new tourist office in 2019, at the heart of this remarkable site. The project plot, located in direct view of the aqueduct's arches, was then a slightly sloped, vacant lot, classified as agricultural land in the local urban planning map, limiting the future construction to a maximum floor area of 100 m².