Odile Decq draws from Lyon’s industrial context to project the waterfront’s new identity. From Oslo and Lisbon to Hamburg and Amsterdam, the last 20 years have seen many of Europe’s redundant urban dockyards transformed into architectural zoos, peppered with signature structures by top-tier architects, often with greater regard for novelty than for the particularities of history or place.

While Rennes, the capital of France's Brittany region, does not make most travel guides' must-see lists, the university town of 200,000 still has its charms: crooked medieval streets lined with half-timbered buildings, stately 18th-century edifices, and cafés that spill out onto picturesque squares.