discover the evolution of Place Wilson, from the 19th century to today
Wilson Square has always been that of entertainment and cinemas. Located near Jean Jaurès, in the heart of Toulouse, it is the witness of a rich evolution, of which the INA has kept the traces. The Independent Opinion goes back in time and offers Toulouse residents a retrospective of this place, from its creation to today.
Limit of the city walls
You have to go back a long time to tell the story of Place Wilson. Fr 1737 precisely, where the project is mentioned. The oval design of the square is a transformation of a first project which included an open hemicycle. The final plan was approved in 1806. Place Wilson is the work of Jacques-Pascal Virebent, architect of the City. At that time, the famous place was called the place Villeneuve. Located on the site of a gate of the medieval wall, it was built from 1806 to 1834.
The vacant lots stretched along the ramparts and were or less built of houses surrounded by gardens. The capitouls decided to clean up the outskirts of the city by building a square near the ramparts. From the outset, a uniform model of facades was imposed. Around the square, the ground floor of the houses presented a series of arches which housed all kinds of shops. From 1860, it was decided to install a tree-lined square in the center of the square, surrounded by a gate. It’s only by 1876 that the Lafayette square is built. It contains the sculpture Moses breaking his chains.
The square in the 1900s. © Toulouse municipal archives
From Lafayette to Wilson
The XIX century was the time when this place was called “la place lafayetteIn those days, the Lafayette Square basin still ignored the poet who would offer it his name years later: Pierre Goudouli. The statue with his effigy will be is inaugurated in 1908 right in the middle of Square Lafayette.
Place Lafayette in 1946. © Toulouse municipal archives
We will have to wait for the July 4, 1918 for the square to be renamed “Place Wilson‘‘. That day, the Toulouse municipality, led by Jean Rieux, named Woodrow Wilson an honorary citizen of the city and gave his name to Place Lafayette. For good reason, the former American president was an important ally of France during the First World War.
Place Lafayette in 1930. © Toulouse municipal archives
Place Lafayette in 1941. © Didier Descouens / Toulouse municipal archives
Having become a central site in the city, Place Wilson is registered for Historical Monuments since 1974. Year after year, this square has seen its landscape change constantly, from its architecture to its cobbled streets. From 2005 to 2006, the space reserved for vehicles was reduced in favor of pedestrians and the roadway was paved identical to the other pedestrian parts of the city. Two years later, the famous Toulouse carousel moved to Place Wilson in 2007. The latter was set up on Place Saint-Georges for 17 years. Years later, he still turns photographers’ heads.
Place Wilson in 1998. © Toulouse municipal archives
Mecca of the 7th art
The Wilson district was not predestined to become the cinema district. Indeed, at the time, the cinematography had no future and no one suspected the future that its eponymous place would know. Long before the first war, in 3 place Lafayette, now called Wilson, there was a music hall called the Petit Casino. A place particularly appreciated by students and non-commissioned officers on leave, who loved its shows. A few years later, Petit Casino will give way to Grand French Theater, where the programs already shoot, before the war, a large part of silent cinema. It is in 1919 that Charles Pathé and Léon Gaumont bought the site. It is the birth of the Gaumont Palace, three years after having created the first success of the Gaumont Palace in Clichy.
This new Toulouse address has a unique meeting room 1.638 pitches, with a six-meter screen, two balconies, a bar, a smoking room, a large entrance hall lit by a splendid glass roof. A work of the architect Pierre Thuriès. Very quickly, the Gaumont Palace became the most luxurious cinema in the city. On the other side of the square is another theater transformed into UGC cinema which takes place at the beginning of the years 1930. He will become the historical competitor of Gaumont until it closed in 2019. In 1974, after many and many technical improvements, the Gaumont Palace took a radical turn, that of multiplexes. The same year, he took the name of “Gaumont Wilson“, like the square on which it is installed. A series of investments will follow to transform the building, over the years, into a large complex of 15 rooms and 3,101 seats.