About this place
Place du Commerce sits on the site of the old Port-au-Vin, where ships once unloaded their cargoes on the banks of the Loire. As the shipowners drifted away from the medieval Bouffay, this became the trading heart of Nantes, and in 1790 the architect Mathurin Crucy crowned it with the handsome Palais de la Bourse, the city's stock exchange. The same architect also designed the nearby Place Royale and the Graslin theatre, giving this part of Nantes its calm neoclassical unity. The ten statues that decorate the Bourse facade were destroyed by wartime bombing and only restored in 2019. Today the river is long gone, buried beneath the pavement, and the square has become the great meeting point of modern Nantes, where tram lines converge in a junction nicknamed the crossroads of the trams.
Key facts
- 1790 year — The Palais de la Bourse stock exchange was built here by Mathurin Crucy
- 2019 year — The ten facade statues, lost to wartime bombing, were finally restored
- 10 statues — Stand along the facade of the old stock exchange above the square
📍 Place du Commerce, 44093, Nantes