France is celebrating the 10th edition of its National Architecture Days through October 19, 2025, with events taking place across the country. This year's theme, "Everyday Architecture," aims to help the general public develop a new perspective on the buildings and spaces they encounter daily, from schools and sports facilities to workplaces and public infrastructure.
Initiated by the Ministry of Culture in 2016, the annual event seeks to highlight the architectural richness of buildings that structure our daily lives, emphasizing that architecture extends far beyond grand monuments to include the most familiar spaces we frequent. The program includes meetings with architects and urban planners, debates, construction site visits, urban walks, and exhibitions, all designed to make architecture accessible to the widest possible audience.
The "everyday architecture" theme also resonates with the concept of "living well together." By inviting people to take a fresh look at spaces they use daily, the event raises awareness about the built environments in which we live – environments that shape our well-being, health, comfort, and way of life together. These interactions occur in schools, sports halls, shops, workplaces, public infrastructure, and community spaces like shared gardens and collaborative housing projects.
The Hauts-de-France region is showcasing particularly remarkable contemporary architecture through numerous events. The programming reflects increased attention to sustainable transformation, material efficiency, and quality of use, exploring the sensitive relationship between humans and their environment. The events address key questions: How can we build, restore, or rehabilitate without erasing the memory and spirit of places? How can innovation be inscribed within the continuity of forms and narratives?
In Croix, visitors can tour Villa Cavrois with guided visits led by site mediators and building professionals. The tour traces the building's evolution through the villa's rooms and an ephemeral pavilion built to commemorate its 10 years of public opening. The visit takes place on Saturday, October 18, with free admission.
Arleux's Ferme des Ailleurs offers walks and conferences to discover the town's architectural heritage on Saturday, October 18, with free entry. Meanwhile, the Museum of Flanders in Cassel provides flash tours of its building, including facades and the mysteries of the Hôtel de la Noble-Cour, alongside Kapla workshops where visitors can build their own castles inspired by paintings in the museum's collection. These activities run from October 18-19 with free admission throughout the weekend.
Dunkirk's FRAC Grand Large presents an "Imaginary Cities, Shared Towns" workshop and mini-tours for children featuring stories and music, plus tours of the FRAC building designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architects. The venue also hosts meetings with the Bureau of Hypotheses, which experiments with shocks, emotions, and anecdotes to imagine hypotheses around forgotten or neglected places in Dunkirk's context. Events run Saturday and Sunday, October 18-19, free with registration.
The Château d'Esquelbecq opens its doors with volunteers offering castle tours showcasing restoration progress since 2018, particularly roofing and carpentry work. A magnificent nighttime show illuminates the castle until 9 PM on Saturday. Events take place October 18-19 with preferential rates.
Lambersart offers several guided walks through the city. The first traverses Admiral Courbet Avenue and Doctor Martin Square, revealing grand neo-Flemish Renaissance villa-châteaux alongside elegant Art Nouveau and Art Deco townhouses, leading to an English-style square with neoclassical homes – an architectural concentration spanning 1888 to 1935. A second walk, "Canteleu, a Rich Industrial and Working Past," explores courtyards, schools, shops, and laundries near the 1900 Saint-Sépulcre bell tower. The third promenade showcases villas along Hippodrome Avenue. All walks occur October 18-19 with preferential rates.
The Colysée in Lambersart displays sketches by the "Urban Sketchers" group highlighting Hippodrome Avenue villas through October 19 with free entry. The Bazaar Saint Sauveur hosts the returning "Lille Archi Market" for a day dedicated to architecture, urban planning, and landscape publishing in various forms: books, magazines, publications, objects, prints, and photographs. The market runs October 18-19 with preferential rates.
Mons-en-Baroeul's newly restored Villa Saint-Luc, a bourgeois house with Belle Époque and Art Nouveau influences, opens its doors with guided tours by its new owners. The work and life of Gabriel Pagnerre, a Mons architect who built over 400 houses in the Lille metropolis and erected Villa Saint-Luc, are presented through personal archives never before shown to the public. Tours occur October 18-19, free with registration.
Roubaix's Le Parpaing opens its doors to showcase its reclaimed construction materials store and stock. The venue will present advances in the "Since Everything is Hay" research project, which questions the challenges of material reuse through carpet tile recycling. Open October 18-19 with free entry.
Saint-Amand-Les-Eaux's Encres Community Media Library offers rich programming including a "Steampunk City" drawing workshop, "Inks and Gears" exhibition featuring ancient works and contemporary creations using various methods (calligraphy, illustration, illumination, sculpture), and an immersive tale where fiction and reality blend to revive the working memory of the mining basin through fantastic characters from the "Carnival of Specters." Events run October 18-19, free with registration.
MusVerre in Sars-Poteries explores how the Avesnois glass heritage inscribes itself territorially from architectural and landscape perspectives: old brick chimneys from glassworks, ridge finials, and MusVerre in blue stone at the heart of the bocage. These landscape elements often inspire artists in residence. Encounters with artworks invoke landscape themes: architecture, nature, and ecology. Through workshops, MusVerre invites visitors to discover its collections and experiment with collage and folding to create their ideal museum on paper. Events run October 17-19, free with registration.
Bruay-La-Buissière's Cité des électriciens hosts the inauguration of a contemporary curtain featuring mining basin motifs. Accompanied by teenagers from the Béthune-Bruay community and artist Fanny Chiarello, architect Alice Hallynck presents the results of collaborative exploration of everyday architecture. After several creative work sessions and a photographic rally, young people selected two images for production at the traditional Dessenne-Lenoir embroidery workshop in Villers-Outréaux. Event occurs October 18 with free entry.
Gouy-Saint-André's "Lencas et léchoppe" farm welcomes the public with small clay and hay workshops, restoration site visits of the farmhouse, and conversations about knowledge in this everyday architecture from the past, between the Opal Coast and Picardy. Events occur October 18, free with registration.
Le Touquet Paris-Plage showcases three architectural gems. The Hotel des Postes, built in 1927 and recently restored, represents a historic Art Deco monument filled with typical details from the Roaring Twenties: geometric forms, wrought iron, ceramics, and emblematic typography. Tours occur October 18 with preferential rates.
The Congress Palace offers bicycle tours of forest villas built from the late 19th century, each with its own name, style, and well-kept secrets nestled among sometimes century-old trees. Heritage guides recount their history, complemented by visits to the city's seaside architecture on October 18 with preferential rates.
The Town Hall, built during the prosperous interwar period, impresses with its imposing appearance and dimensions. Architects drew inspiration from neo-Tudor, Anglo-Norman, and Flemish styles with an Art Deco touch that gives it personality. Guided tours reveal the majestic honor hall, council chamber with original furniture, and marriage hall with Tudor-inspired ceiling on October 19 with preferential rates.
Saint-Martin-lez-Tatinghem's Maison du Marais, with its unique architecture anchored in the landscape for 11 years, offers guided tours and boat trips through the Audomarois marsh on October 18 with preferential rates. Saint-Omer provides a walking tour from the Housing Center to the Heritage House, reflecting on links between heritage, housing, and modern lifestyles on October 18, free with registration.
Thérouanne's Archaeology House concludes the program with guided tours of the exhibition "Living and Dwelling, the House Through the Centuries," immersing visitors in the evolution of habitat and daily life from antiquity to the present day on October 19, free with registration.
