Embedded in the massive European Metropolis of Lille, Roubaix was an industrial boomtown in the 19th century when it was boosted by a thriving textile trade.
By the end of the 20th century, this industry had dwindled and the city had to find a new identity. But a lot of the splendor from the glory days is waiting if you know where to look. Interesting new cultural attractions have opened and the giant Roubaix Hay shopping mall has become a cross-border shopping destination. There’s much to keep you entertained in these parts, but you’re also never far from Lille and the neighboring towns in the conurbation, which all deserve a visit. Discover the best things to do in Roubaix.
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1. La Piscine Museum
The city’s museum opened in 2000 and is nothing short of spectacular. For starters, the venue is a converted Art Deco swimming pool from the 1930s: The great pool, showroom, tiled walls, and stained windows form the main gallery, while a home Side weaving machines provide additional exhibition space.
It has all the cultural context to display the Roubaix textile industry graph and the incredible repository of thousands of patterns dating back to 1835. There are also fabrics from ancient Egypt, a collection of timepieces. The page revolves around ceramics and paintings by Tsugouharu Foujita.
2. La Manufacture
It’s only right that you should pull on the cloth-making thread while you’re in Roubaix. The city has maintained its textile heritage at La Manufacturing, a museum in the former Craye factory.
The 19th-century building is gigantic, and when you enter you’re struck by a hall of machines from different periods. There are hand-operated looms from medieval times and 21st-century computerized machines, as well as all of the equipment that was here when the factory shut down.
Textile workers put on demonstrations with this machinery, and the museum has also kept an emotive audio archive of accounts about the old times from foremen, weavers, and spinners.
3. Villa Cavroix
You can see a large portion of the textile wealth has been spent at this incredible modern home in Croix. The residence was cutting-edge when it was finished in 1932, and has only recently been restored and opened to the public after decades of neglect.
But everything is as it was in the 1930s, although some rooms have been left clear of furniture to let you appreciate the mastery of Mallet-Stevens’ design and the exceptional quality of the marble and wood used for paneling and floors.
4. Parc Barbieux
Found just to the south of the center, Roubaix’ main park has an interesting origin story: The water channel that meanders through the center of the park is the vestige on an abortive attempt to link the center of Roubaix with the Marque River.
That project began in 1840 but was abandoned half-way through before the banks and mounds that the works left behind were turned into a flowing English garden at the turn of the 20th century.
Come here in summer if you’re stuck for things to do with the family as there’s a mini-golf course, pedalos, rowing boats, a pétanque court and a smattering of kiosks.
5. Église Saint-Martin
There has been a church on this spot for around a thousand years, and although nothing remains from the Romanesque building the nave has columns that were sculpted in the 1400s. The remainder was made up of a comprehensive neo-gothic style in the mid-19th century.
The architect in charge was Charles Leroy, who had a prodigious output all across the North of France and especially in the Lille area. Inside, take a look at the multicolored altar of St John the Baptist, dating to around 1540, as well as paintings by the acclaimed 19th-century painter Victor Mottez.
6. City Hall
The Roubaix Hôtel de Ville is a wonderful document when the city is at its peak. Victor Laloux, the man who designed the Gare d’Orsay (now Musée) in Paris, was commissioned for the job with 1903. Together with the sculptor Alphonse-Amédée Cordonnier, he created a Neo-Renaissance ode to the city’s textile industry.
Look for the frieze on the facade of the central pavilion, which has six 2.40-meter figures representing all of the activities that were the lifeblood of Roubaix: Cotton-harvesting, cotton-washing, spinning, weaving, dyeing, and conditioning.
7. Paris-Roubaix
Roubaix Velodrome is the finish line for the legendary Paris-Roubaix bike race. During the UCI World Tour, this one-day event in mid-April is a classic or legendary Monument. Winning Paris-Roubaix is a big achievement for the backers, but it's not easy because most of the course is on rudimentary tracks and pebbles.
The surface is so hard-going that the race has been dubbed Hell on the North and a Sunday in Hell, and special gear has been designed specifically for the course. Whether you’re watching along the grueling route or at the finish line no cycle fanatic will want to miss this spectacle.
8. McArthurGlen Roubaix
A pillar of the city’s redevelopment program is this sizeable designer outlet, which opened a few years ago a couple of minutes south of the center. The mall pulls in shoppers from Lille and across the border in Belgium, and has 75 stores for a catalog of premium and designer brands: Calvin Klein, Guess, Lacoste, Desigual.
Dotted among the stores are a few places to rest your weary legs and get lunch or a cup of coffee, plus you’ve got free Wi-Fi, a children’s play area and helpful staff that are trained in several languages.
9. Usine Motte-Bossut
None of Roubaix’s other industrial behemoths come close to this old cotton mill for whimsy and grandeur. The Usine Motte-Bossut looks like a giant castle, with an entrance like a gatehouse and a chimney stack shaped like a turret.
There’s no missing it, as the factory was built next to the Roubaix Canal, right in the middle of the city on Rue du Général-Leclerc. The bulk of the building is from the 1840s but extensions were made up to the 1920s.
It all closed down in the 80s but was soon renovated and now holds the National Archives of the World of Work, part of the French Ministry of Culture.
10. Verlaine Message Museum
Under ten minutes from Roubaix, in Tourcoing, is a museum in a huge Nazi bunker at the former headquarters of the 15th German Army. Radio Londres was the French Resistance station broadcasting from London during the war.
On 5 June 1944, the night before the Normandy Invasions, it sent out coded messages in the form of snippets of poetry by the likes of Paul Verlaine to warn the Resistance to mobilize.
This is the German bunker that first intercepted those messages, and you have a lot to pore over down here: There’s communications equipment, a generator, signal detectors and all kinds of military paraphernalia.
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