Saint-Étienne: from coal to industrial design

Former mining and industrial basin, Saint-Étienne has reinvented itself as a UNESCO Design city, the first French city to receive this recognition.

The tram remains the most convenient way to move around a city transformed from coal to design.

The Cité du Design, a former artillery school converted into use, hosts every two years an international biennial that has made Saint-Étienne a recognized creative hub throughout Europe.

Just steps away, the Museum of Art and Industry displays weapons, bicycles, and ribbons, the three historic industries that made the city famous.

Moving toward the center you visit the Modern Art Museum, among France's most important contemporary art collections outside Paris.

In the evening, the Manufacture quarter comes alive with venues and restaurants in restored nineteenth-century industrial buildings.

Saint-Étienne was the first French city to receive the UNESCO Creative City title for Design in 2010, a recognition that guided the city's post-industrial transformation and attracted new cultural investments.

Manufrance, the historic weapons and bicycles manufacturer of Saint-Étienne, remains a symbol of the city's golden industrial age, now remembered in the municipal museum with original machinery still operational.