Spring of Art Deco across Hauts‑de‑France

Hauts-de-France is spending spring on Art Deco, with a region-wide festival running from April 3 to May 31 across northern French cities and towns. (printempsartdeco.fr) The 2026 edition brings together 21 partner cities and tourism offices, with guided tours, exhibitions, workshops, concerts and self-guided trails from Amiens and Lille to Saint-Quentin, Lens and Valenciennes. (printempsartdeco.fr; printempsartdeco.fr) This week’s listings include a traveling “Cent ans d’Art déco” exhibition in the Cambrésis through April 26, a 10-minute video-mapping show on the façade of Roubaix’s La Piscine museum through April 25, and ongoing Art Deco routes in Lens, Béthune, Albert and Lille through May 31. (printempsartdeco.fr; printempsartdeco.fr) Art Deco is the geometric, decorative style that spread in France in the 1920s and 1930s, and in Hauts-de-France it became part of the rebuilding that followed World War I destruction. Regional officials say town halls, churches, pools, housing blocks, mosaics, ironwork and stained glass from that period still shape city centers across the region. (hautsdefrance.fr) That history is especially visible in places hit hard in 1918. The festival’s organizers say some Somme villages were left with only a handful of standing houses before Reconstruction produced new churches, memorials and civic buildings in Art Deco forms. (printempsartdeco.fr) The 2026 program also leans on the centenary of the 1925 Paris Exposition internationale des Arts décoratifs et industriels modernes, the fair widely treated as Art Deco’s defining showcase in France. An official festival exhibition traces how that Paris moment echoed through Hauts-de-France. (printempsartdeco.fr; calameo.com) Local stops show how broad that legacy is. In Lens, one featured weekend centers on the former mining company headquarters and the station’s locomotive-shaped design, while Béthune offers a family “safari” built around animal motifs hidden on Reconstruction-era façades. (printempsartdeco.fr; printempsartdeco.fr) The event has been running for years and is now one of the region’s recurring heritage fixtures. Lille says the festival has highlighted Art Deco heritage since 2012, while local tourism offices describe it as an annual spring program spread across April and May. (lille.fr; tourisme-lens.fr) For visitors this weekend, the practical point is simple: the program is decentralized, and the schedule changes by city, date and format. The official agenda is listing free and paid events across the region through Saturday, April 25, Sunday, April 26, and the rest of May. (printempsartdeco.fr)