Tour 46, Former fortification tower and museum in Belfort, France
Tour 46 is a former fortification tower in Belfort, France, built as part of a pentagon-shaped defensive wall with five corner towers. The structure is made of solid stone and still shows the form of a bastion tower, with thick walls designed to withstand artillery fire.
The tower was built at the end of the 17th century, when the military engineer Vauban redesigned Belfort's defenses in 1687 after France took control of the city. In 1971, Tour 46 and the nearby Tour 41 were officially listed as protected historical sites.
The tower's name comes from the number Vauban assigned to it, a numbering system the city has kept to this day. This gives the building a straightforward identity that reflects its military origin rather than any symbolic renaming.
The building is permanently closed to visitors and cannot be entered, but the exterior stonework and the tower's shape are visible from the street. It sits close to the city center, so it is easy to pass by on foot when exploring the area.
Although the museum is now closed, Belfort has kept Vauban's original numbering system for all the towers, so each one is still known by the number he gave it in the 17th century. Tour 46 is therefore not just a building but a trace of a 17th-century administrative method that still shapes how the city refers to its own history.
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