Lille - Place du Theatre

On the north side of this square are the New Theater (1907-1914) and the New Exchange, a building in Flemish Renaissance style with a massive tower erected after the First World War.

On the south side of the square is the Old Exchange (by Julien Destré, 1652), with 24 two-story units surrounding an arcaded courtyard in an ornate Flemish Baroque style. In the courtyard is a monument to Napoleon I (1854). The west front looks on to the Place du Général-de-Gaulle.

A little to the south is Place Rihour, with a large war memorial and the Palais Rihour (15th C.), once the residence of the Dukes of Burgundy. Farther southwest is the Jesuit church of St-Etienne (18th C.; fine pulpit), with the former Jesuit college (1605), now the Military Hospital, to the left.