Le Havre
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Overview
A Unesco World Heritage Site since 2005 and a regular port of call for cruise ships, Le Havre is a love letter to modernism, evoking, more than any other French city, France’s postwar energy and optimism. All but obliterated in September 1944 by Allied bombing raids that killed 3000 civilians, the centre was completely rebuilt by the Belgian architect Auguste Perret – mentor to Le Corbusier – whose bright, airy modernist vision remains, miraculously, largely intact.
Attractions
Must-see attractions
Le Havre
Near the waterfront, this luminous and tranquil space houses a fabulous collection of vivid impressionist works – the finest in France outside Paris – by…
Le Havre
Le Havre’s most conspicuous landmark, designed by Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer and opened in 1982, is also the city’s premier cultural venue. One…
Le Havre
Perret’s masterful, 107m-high Église St-Joseph, visible from all over town, was built using bare concrete from 1951 to 1959. Some 13,000 panels of…
Le Havre
The Jardins Suspendus (Hanging Gardens) is an old hilltop fortress transformed into a beautiful set of gardens, whose greenhouses and outdoor spaces…
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Le Havre
Furnished in impeccable early-1950s style, this lovingly furnished bourgeois apartment can be visited on a one-hour guided tour that starts at 181 rue de…
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Le Havre
This colossal building, built in 1958 to replace one flattened by allied bombing in 1944, was designed by architects Auguste Perret – that great…
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Le Havre
When Le Havre's concrete expanses and straight lines overpower you, stop by this lovely Baroque church, which somehow eluded the intense bombing efforts…
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