Head out of town for the main museums. The substantial Musée de la Mine (t 04 77 43 83 23) set in a disused mine just to the west looks dismal on the outside, but is in part run by enthusiastic former miners. To the south, the Musée d’Art et d’Industrie (t 04 77 49 73 00) has moved into one of the most splendid buildings in town, and explains the city’s craft traditions with remarkable panache. Broad, tree-lined Cours Fauriel makes a grand winding exit from town, the Astronef Planétarium (t 04 77 33 43 01, check timeson www.sideral.com) along the way. Out on the eastern ringroad, don’t mistake the Musée d’Art Moderne (t 04 77 79 52 52) for an enormous bathroom showroom. This proves a serious, challenging gallery. Most aptly for this industrial city, Fernand Léger’s industrialized figures stand out, the central woman in his Trois Femmes with hair curving like a sheet of black metal. There are further shocking images of women by the likes of Picasso, Dubuffet, and Warhol. But one of the museum’s most provocative collections is of Surrealists’ favourite Victor Brauner, whose liberated subconscious couldn’t keep phalluses out of the picture. West of St-Etienne, modern architecture triumphs in the satellite town of Firminy, claiming the largest array of buildings designed by the ground-breaking modernist Le Corbusier.
For more information on the area, and the département of the Loire, read the Cadogan guide to the Rhône-Alpes.
Copyright text :Philippe Barbour 2004.
Copyright Images : Wikipedia
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