This guide covers six places in central Lille that are easy to link on foot: the belfry of the City Hall, the Porte de Paris, the Palais des Beaux-Arts and the Place de la République around it, the war memorial in front of the Palais Rihour, and the belfry of the Chamber of Commerce. Together they tell the story of a Flemish city that became French under Louis XIV, grew into an industrial capital and rebuilt itself after the First World War. All six are stops on our Lille scavenger hunt.
The City Hall belfry
Lille's City Hall is a 20th-century building, not a medieval one. The town hall used to be in the Palais Rihour, and after fire destroyed much of that building in 1916, the city gave the job of designing a new one to the architect Émile Dubuisson. Work on the site began in 1924. The belfry went up in two phases between 1929 and 1931 and was inaugurated in 1932, while the rest of the town hall was only fully completed in 1992.
At 104 metres, the tower dominates the south-east of the centre, and around 400 steps lead to the top. Its brick and concrete outline takes up the old Flemish tradition of the civic belfry, the tower that stood for a town's freedoms, rather than a church spire. In 2005 it was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List as part of the belfries of Belgium and France; in Lille, only this belfry is on that list.
- At the foot of the tower, look for the two giants Lydéric and Phinaert, figures from the city's legends. They are concrete statues by the sculptor Carlo Sarrabezolles, who shaped the concrete by hand while it was still wet.
- From the Porte de Paris side you get the classic view of the belfry rising directly behind the triumphal gate.
The Porte de Paris
A few steps from the City Hall stands the Porte de Paris, a city gate and triumphal arch at the same time. Louis XIV took Lille after a siege in 1667, and the king commissioned the architect Simon Vollant to build a new gate celebrating the city's attachment to France. It was built between 1686 and 1694 and replaced the medieval Porte des Malades, the southern exit of the city, named after a leper house outside the walls.
When the ramparts were taken down around 1860, a round square was laid out around the gate, today the Place Simon-Vollant. The architect Louis-Marie Cordonnier reworked the gate between 1888 and 1892 and added the facade facing the town. It is about 29 metres high and has been a listed historic monument since 1875.
- On the outer face, Mars, the god of war, stands on the left and Hercules, a symbol of strength, on the right, between Doric columns.
- At the top, a Victory with a raised arm, ready to crown Louis XIV, is flanked by two angels and two figures of Fame; below sit the coat of arms of Lille and the royal arms.
The Palais des Beaux-Arts
The Palais des Beaux-Arts is one of the largest art museums in France and has one of the biggest fine art collections outside Paris. The museum was founded in 1809 under Napoleon I, first in a former church and then in the town hall, before it got its own palace. The present building, in a lavish Beaux-Arts style, was begun in 1885 under mayor Géry Legrand and finished in 1892, to designs by the Paris architects Édouard Bérard and Fernand Delmas.
Between 1991 and 1997 the museum was renovated by the architects Jean-Marc Ibos and Myrto Vitart, who added a large basement hall for temporary exhibitions. The paintings include works by Rubens, Van Dyck, Goya and Courbet, among many others.
- The relief maps (plans-reliefs) in the basement: large scale models of fortified towns from the age of Vauban, which came to Lille in the early 1990s.
- The main facade on the Place de la République, which faces the Préfecture across the square.
The Place de la République
The square in front of the museum was created after Lille expanded in 1858, on the moat of the old fortifications, and was first called Place Napoléon-III. The Préfecture, begun in 1865, closes it on one side and the Palais des Beaux-Arts on the other. In 1979 a fountain with the sculpture Groupe des trois by Eugène Dodeigne was placed in the centre, and after the metro arrived, an open-air amphitheatre facing the station was added in 1983 where there used to be a car park. The République – Beaux-Arts metro station lies right under the square.
- Stand on the steps of the amphitheatre to see both facades, the Préfecture and the museum, in one view.
The war memorial at the Palais Rihour
Lille's war memorial stands in front of the remains of the Palais Rihour, the 15th-century palace begun in 1453 for the Duke of Burgundy Philip the Good. The memorial dates from the late 1920s and is the work of the sculptor Edgar Boutry and the architect Jacques Alleman. It recalls the destruction and suffering of the city in the First World War, when Lille was occupied, and it also honours the dead of later wars. Its inscription is dedicated to the soldiers and civilians of Lille. The memorial partly hides the late Gothic remains of the palace when you look from the Grand Place.
- The bas-reliefs by Boutry, and behind the memorial the Gothic chapel and the old guard room with its octagonal stair turret, the parts of the palace that survived.
The Chamber of Commerce belfry
Lille has a second belfry. It belongs to the building of the Chamber of Commerce on the Place du Théâtre, right beside the Vieille Bourse and facing the Opera. The building was designed by Louis-Marie Cordonnier, the same architect who reworked the Porte de Paris, and was built between 1906 and the early 1920s. Its style is known as néo-lillois, a regional revival style in brick and stone with rich decoration.
Cordonnier designed several belfries in the north of France, and this one is considered his most successful. Its tower gives the Place du Théâtre a skyline of its own, next to the Opera, which replaced the theatre destroyed by fire in 1903, and the Vieille Bourse, completed in 1652.
How to see them in one walk
Start at the City Hall belfry and walk the short way to the Porte de Paris for the view of the gate with the tower behind it. Then head west to the Place de la République and the Palais des Beaux-Arts. From there walk north through the old centre to the Palais Rihour and its war memorial, cross the Grand Place and finish on the Place du Théâtre under the Chamber of Commerce belfry, with the Vieille Bourse next door. Allow extra time if you plan to go inside the museum.
See Lille with World City Trail
Our Lille scavenger hunt turns the city centre into a game you play on your phone. The route links 10 stops, from the City Hall belfry to the Notre-Dame-de-la-Treille Cathedral, and all six places in this guide are among them, together with the Saint-Maurice church, the Lille Grand Palais and the Vieille Bourse.
There is also a self-guided walking tour and an outdoor escape game in Lille, for people who prefer a different format.
Play the Lille scavenger hunt →
Take the self-guided walking tour of Lille →
Play the outdoor escape game in Lille →
Facts checked in October 2026.