- Stage city for the 6th time
- Sub-prefecture of Saône-et-Loire (71)
- Population: 44,600 (Chalonnais and Chalonnaises)
French sports fans have followed the rise of Elan Chalon, two-time winners of the French basketball championship (2012, 2017). When it comes to cycling, historians will highlight British racing pioneer Brian Robinson’s victory here in 1959 after a long solo breakaway. On the Tour’s next finish in Chalon, in 1988, Thierry Marie won his second stage by outsmarting the sprinters in the final kilometre. Dylan Groenewegen, however, wasn’t caught napping when he drew on his finishing speed to claim the fourth of his six Tour stages in 2019.
Cathédrale Saint-Vincent et cloître des Chanoines
Construction : 11th to 15th century.
Style : Romanesque and Gothic.
History : the construction of Saint-Vincent Cathedral spanned six centuries. The building blends Romanesque and Gothic. It began in 1090; from that period remain the north and south apsidal chapels. The 12th century brought the choir, the transept and the pillars and arcades of the nave and aisles. Romanesque was followed, in the 13th and 14th centuries, by Gothic elements: the choir apse, the nave walls and the cloister, and the vault over the transept crossing. Finally, in the 15th century, the nave vault and the aisle chapels were completed. In 1562, Huguenot fury devastated the church: statues were destroyed and the treasury removed. Over the next two centuries, changes in architectural taste led to the disappearance of certain Gothic elements (tombs, stalls and the rood screen). During the Revolution, the bishopric was abolished, the church was dedicated to the goddess Reason and used as a hay store. The 19th and 20th centuries focused on repairs. A neo-Gothic façade was completed around 1850, the roof was redone toward the end of the 19th century and its towers were restored in 1991.
Listing : Monument historique since 1903.
Ancien hôpital
Construction : 1530 (foundation) to 1854 (façade).
History : Chalon’s hospital was created in the 16th century (a building with arcaded galleries, remodeled in the 18th century). In the second half of the 20th century, modernization, humanization, demolitions and new construction transformed the establishment, which became the William-Morey Hospital Center. Begun in 2008, construction of the “New Chalonnais Hospital” to the north of the city led, in 2011, to the decommissioning of the building, which has since been the subject of various renovation projects.
Characteristics : laid out on Saint-Laurent Island, the hospital’s plan evolved considerably over the centuries. Its oldest part consists of several wings from different periods arranged around three courtyards and dominated by a lantern tower topped with a dome. Along the Saône quay stand the vast wing built in 1854 and the nuns’ residence dating from the 16th century, recognizable by its crow-stepped gable.
Listing : listed as a Monument historique in 1932.
Tour du Doyenné
Construction : 16th century.
History : in the Middle Ages it served as a staircase tower giving access to the floors of the dean of the canons’ house. In 1907 it was sold, dismantled and transported to Paris. After the First World War, a benefactor found it and donated it to the city, which re-erected it.
Listing : listed as a Monument historique in 1948.
Nicéphore Niépce
From a well-to-do Burgundian bourgeois family (his father was a lawyer and royal counselor), Joseph Niépce considered becoming a priest before giving up the idea in 1788. When the Revolution broke out, he joined the National Guard and adopted the surname Nicéphore. But by 1794, failing eyesight forced him to abandon a military career. He then settled in Nice. In 1801, the family returned to the Niépce property at Saint-Loup-de-Varennes, near Chalon-sur-Saône, to manage the family estate.
Passionate about physics and chemistry, Claude and Nicéphore together developed a new kind of engine, the Pyréolophore, a forerunner of the diesel, for which they obtained a ten-year patent. In his brother’s absence, Nicéphore undertook alone, in 1816, new research on a subject he had long held dear: fixing images. In May 1816, using a camera obscura loaded with paper coated with silver chloride, he obtained a negative of a view taken from a window. In 1822, he began experimenting with bitumen of Judea: a copper plate coated with this substance and exposed for eight hours in the camera obscura, then immersed in a solvent and etched by an acid in the areas devoid of bitumen, yielded a relief image. In 1827, by this process—which he called Heliography—after eight hours of exposure, Nicéphore obtained what constitutes the very first photograph: a view taken from a window of the attic of his house in Saint-Loup-de-Varennes.
He is also credited with :
– the first photographic camera obscura,
– the first sliding box camera,
– the first iris diaphragm (reinvented fifty years later),
– a camera fitted with a spool for winding the sensitized paper.
After meeting Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre, a scenic painter who used the camera obscura to sketch his dioramas, Niépce partnered with him in 1829 to perfect his “heliographic” achievements. But he died suddenly four years later of a cerebral hemorrhage, heavily in debt and without having succeeded in arousing interest in his invention. Daguerre, taking over his associate’s experiments, would succeed in developing (1835), then fixing (daguerreotype, 1838) photographic images, and would enjoy great fame in his lifetime. Nicéphore Niépce’s role in the invention of photography is, however, fully recognized today.
Statue de bronze Nicéphore Niépce
Installed on Place du Port-Villiers, it was created in 1885 by Eugène Guillaume, a sculptor who worked free of charge in honor of his subject.
Musée Nicéphore Niépce
The museum is housed in a former royal messenger inn (late 18th century). It is a U-shaped building facing the Saône, notable for its massive timber framing. Built around the various devices, heliographic plates and personal objects of Nicéphore Niépce, the collections have grown through successive donations and acquisitions of photographic equipment and other objects on the one hand, and photographs and other images on the other.
Hôtel de ville
Typical of the small private mansions with sculpted façades which, after belonging to wealthy merchants, were converted into dwellings. The Town Hall is housed in the former private mansion of a Chalon industrialist (late 19th, early 20th century) with a striking interior featuring coffered ceilings, mouldings, and more.
Chalon dans la rue
An annual street-arts festival created in 1987 that welcomes over 200,000 spectators over five days at the end of July, making it one of the most important street-arts festivals organized in France. A key reference for creation in public space, the Chalon dans la rue festival reflects the current state of the street-arts scene. Each year, nearly 180 French and international companies take over Chalon-sur-Saône. Established troupes mingle with the youngest, street arts with digital arts, and live performance with interdisciplinary happenings.
