During the XIVth century, Avignon was only the capital of a county living out of the agriculture productions, Garance, Silkworm…Again it became a cultural center, thanks to few men ( the Félibres ) who made it the center of the provençal renaissance. Théodore Aubanel, Joseph Roumanille and especially Fréderic Mistral who received the Nobel price of literature in 1904, this movement permit the Provençal culture to be very well known in the world.

Between the two world wars, Avignon starts to extends outside the ramparts. Jean Vilar launched the Avignon festival in the Popes Palace in 1948 which became later the most important theater festival in the world. The economic activity based on the trade and the tourism helped the city to become a real regional capital. Outside the walls the modern districts with new infrastructure started to rise, meanwhile the city center was under a important campaign of restoration of monuments which brought them to take a part of the economic or social activity of the town such as in the university , library, museums etc..

The urbanism during the XIXth cent.

The construction of the main axis, la République street took place in the middle of the XIXth cent. To link directly the new train station to the center town. So that was the motor of the economic boom which imposed new openings in the ramparts, the construction of the central public market , to establish new streets surrounded with pretty buildings and beautiful mansions.

Dated from that period as well, the synagogue and the Hautpoul quarter, now-a-days , a government administrative quarter.

Since 1447, the ancient mansion of the cardinal bishop d’Albano was transformed to a common house; it is on this site where the new city hall was edified, inaugurated in 1852 by the Prince Louis Napoléon who was the head of the state. There, it was conserved the statue of a couple on which we call now-a-days the clock tower.

The theater

After the fire which took place there in 1846, immediatly another started to erect, based on the plans of two architects: Léon Feuchères et Théodore Charpentier.

The year after, even it was not completely achieved, it was open to the public.

The church of Saint Joseph the worke

Designed by Guillaume Gillet, who received the grand prix in Rome, for the area between Montclar and Champfleuri districts in 1969.

The set of buildings relatively elegant and is listed among the historic monuments

The new bridges of Avignon

The new 2 important bridges on the Rhone river leading the to the TGV station designed by the architect Jean Marie Dutilleul, place Avignon directly in the new millenium.

Today, Avignon is in the center of a vast area where the modernity is its cap, while culture and history are the motor of its economic evolution.