In Lyon, Artists and Designers Light Up the City. [View all]

Lyon, France’s third-largest city, was made for Christmas.

Like an average-looking woman who becomes beautiful under candlelight, the city becomes radiant for four days every December during the Festival of Lights. The event, which draws between three and four million visitors, shows off Lyon’s unique approach to lighting, a pointillist style that uses small spotlights to highlight elaborate decorations and details of buildings for dramatic effect.

This year’s festival invited Paris fashion designers to make magic, not on young models’ bodies, but on old buildings. Jean-Charles de Castelbajac created a mystical Garden of Eden called “Lost Paradise” among the columns and arcades of the courtyard of the 17th century City Hall. His son, Guilhem, a photographer living in New York, projected a constellation of stars on the ground. The lingerie designer Chantal Thomass brought springtime to the Place de la Bourse with “Serenade,” a 26-foot sculpture of a rose bouquet that was lit up with projections of her favorite flowers and tied in lace and satin ribbons.

http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/12/24/letter-from-france-in-lyon-artists-and-designers-light-up-the-city/?module=WatchingPortal&region=c-column-middle-span-region&pgType=Homepage&action=click&mediaId=wide&state=slideshow&contentPlacement=6&version=internal&contentCollection=tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com&contentId=http%3A%2F%2Ftmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com%2F2013%2F12%2F24%2Fletter-from-france-in-lyon-artists-and-designers-light-up-the-city%2F&eventName=Watching-article-click&_r=0

Saw a show about Lyon + food recently, and thought about putting the city on my Bucket list.