Palais de la Bourse, 18th-century stock exchange building in Bordeaux, France

The Palais de la Bourse is an L-shaped stone building enclosing one side of the place de la Bourse, with a ground-floor arcade of tall arched openings and two upper storeys of rectangular windows under a steep dark roof with dormer windows. A pedimented pavilion crowned by a white dome on a narrow turret rises at one end. Inside, a former courtyard is now covered, ringed by round-arched arcades with wrought-iron gates.

The Palais de la Bourse was built between 1742 and 1749 as part of the Place de la Bourse, originally the Place Royale, a scheme promoted by intendant Claude Boucher to frame an equestrian statue of Louis XV. Jacques Gabriel drew the facades of the Hôtel des Fermes du Roi (1735-1738); after his death in 1742 his son Ange-Jacques Gabriel continued the work under the marquis de Tourny. In 1749 the merchants' exchange, the chamber of commerce and the consular court moved in.

The courtyard, now covered, is ringed by round-arched arcades whose tympana carry commercial emblems and the names of Europe's main trading places. Two 1750 dials by the Bordeaux faience maker Hustin show a clock and, linked to a rooftop weather vane, the wind direction, which let merchants judge when a cargo might reach port.

The building stands between the place de la Bourse, the quai du Maréchal-Lyautey and the place Jean-Jaurès, so it can be circled on foot from the square and the quay side. The arcaded inner courtyard is now covered and holds the commercial emblems and the two 1750 dials by the potter Hustin, one a clock and one a wind indicator linked to a roof weathervane.

The courtyard behind the arcade was once open to the sky and is now covered by a vault pierced with fourteen glazed lanterns. Two 1750 dials by the Bordeaux faience maker Hustin show a clock and the wind direction, once used by merchants to judge when a cargo might reach the port.