The new face of Place de la Riponne, in the center of Lausanne, was unveiled today by the municipality of the Vaud capital. Giant fresco, islands of greenery and new wooden structure available to the population in place of the fountain, which is disappearing: such is the program of transitional arrangements announced by the trustee Grégoire Junod.
All this will be carried out from June 2025, in parallel with the finalization of the parking lot work. The creation of a giant fresco on the ground was imagined by French-speaking artist Caroline Bourrit. This new decoration was the subject of a competition in the summer of 2024. The design of a large wooden structure by the ALICE laboratory at EPFL was designed by some 200 architecture students.
In his press release, Grégoire Junod emphasizes that access to one of the largest car parks in Lausanne – they are becoming rare – will be guaranteed. Except that, when we look at the plan below presented by the municipality, we immediately notice that two of the three car accesses to Riponne (via avenue de l’Université or via rue des Deux-Marchés) are obviously deleted.
From then on, there will only be one single access to the car park via Rue du Tunnel, from the west of the square. Which is already a bottleneck. We don’t dare imagine what it will be like when the entire flow of motorists wishing to park at or exit La Riponne will find themselves on this only track available…
