Hôtel-Dieu, Lyon

The Grand Hôtel-Dieu is still the long building on the Rhône. Soufflot drew the façade and the dome and never saw the dome finished. The courtyard keeps the cloister: gravel, magnolia, the clock.

Le Dôme is the old chapel. Stone, coffers, a checkerboard floor, almost no one in it at the right hour. Light comes through the oculus and sits on the wall.

The duplex rooms keep Soufflot’s windows whole. You sleep under them. A stair goes up to a sitting room that looks back down on the bed. The bath is quiet. Outside, the river.