LYONS A fusion of north and south, it is as hard-working and efficient as it is Epicurean and convivial. This elegant equilibrium is the legacy of the city's location, almost equidistant between Paris and the Riviera, at the foot of the Alps and the juncture of the Rhone and Saone Rivers.

By ALEXANDER LOBRANO

he Romans made Lyons the hub of five roads, creating a thriving city that traded with all parts of the empire. Its vocation as a shrewd broker of goods and ideas matured during the early Renaissance, when it pioneered trade fairs and international banking. The first stock market in France opened there in 1506.

During the 16th century the city also became the silk-weaving center of the Western world, and in 1804 Lyonnais Joseph-Marie Jacquard revolutionized the textile industry by inventing the punch-card loom. The 19th century city prospered by developing a broad industrial base in metalworking, mechanical engineering and chemicals, but it has always been at its best when historical and economic currents invigorate its role as a strategic crossroads.

Today, Lyons is putting the finishing touches to an impressive renewal of its urban infrastructure. While the city is not immune to the modern French illnesses of unemployment, troubled suburbs and air pollution, what other city in France could conceive of parked cars as works of art? An inverted periscope in the middle of the recently redesigned Place des Celestins offers a dizzying look at the new subterranean parking lot beneath: an Escher-like vision of a buried Italian Renaissance tower, the garage unfurling around a windowed central column at the bottom of which is a rotating reflector. Signed by architects Jean-Michel Wilmotte and Daniel Targe and artist Daniel Buren, the project underlines the fact that when it comes to adventurous urbanism, France's second city is second to none. (Lyons is in fact third in population, after Paris and Marseille, but charisma evidently wins out; Second City has long been its unofficial title.)

Though he resigned in the wake of a financial scandal, it was former Mayor Michel Noir who initiated Lyons' renovation, aiming to turn around its postwar reputation as a grimy, stolid place in which to get stuck in traffic on the way to the Riviera. Noir's successor, former Prime Minister Raymond Barre, has increased the momentum of the metamorphosis.

Lyons' opera house has been renovated by architect Jean Nouvel, who mounted an enormous semi-cylindrical glass roof on the original 19th century building and transformed its interior into a sleek black-and-chrome shell. Its programs are just as impressive; last month a concert version of Mozart's Mithridate starred mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoli and Lyons' own soprano Natalie Dessay. This month sees the final performances of Prokofiev's Love for Three Oranges, a program of Stravinsky ballets and Mats Ek's Nederlands Dans Theater. The 1998-99 season promises nearly 200 performances, including nine full operas.

Even showier than the Opera, the city's Plan Lumiere is the best nightly light show in France, with some 230 illuminated buildings rising above the riverbanks. The dome of the handsome 19th century Hotel de Ville on the Place des Terreaux is bathed in blue; the Opera's glass roof glows an eerie red; the Pont Masaryk crossing the Saone is a bolt of fluorescent yellow; and the four domes of Notre Dame de Fourviere, a neo-Byzantine basilica built in 1870, radiate gold across the hilltop that dominates the city's skyline.

Lyons' illuminations also shed light on the city's unusually open outlook. Says Bruce Redor, a San Francisco native and former Disneyland Paris executive who has been director of Lyons' tourist office for the past two years: "This sort of job traditionally goes to a well-born native son, but I had a fantastic reception when I arrived." He says Americans and Japanese love Lyons "because it is friendly, walkable and offers all the best of France--history, culture, gastronomy and shopping."

Even in a city that appreciates grand gestures and likes to pull strings--it is, after all, the birthplace of the satirical puppet, Guignol--it was considered a coup when the Museum of Fine Arts landed the collection of the late actress Jaqueline Delubac, including works by Manet, Monet, Picasso, Braque and Miro. Following an eight-year, $70 million renovation, museum director Philippe Durey has reorganized a collection encyclopedic enough to have been dubbed Le Petit Louvre in the French press, and architect Wilmotte has designed elegantly austere interiors for the former Benedictine abbey.

The city has also offered space to other avant-garde architects. The dramatic new terminal at Lyon-Satolas airport is by Spaniard Santiago Calatrava, and Italian Renzo Piano has designed a new complex, the Cite Internationale, on the city's northern edge. Ten minutes away by subway is the splendidly restored Vieux Lyon quarter on the banks of the Rhone, with the largest number of Renaissance buildings in France.

Nowhere is the harmony between past and present better displayed than in Lyons' restaurants. Paul Bocuse is still in his three-star kitchen in suburban Collonges, and running three new bistro annexes in town. A new generation of chefs, including the Villa Florentine's Stephane Gaborieau and Cyril Nitard at the Fleur de Sel, is assuring the city's gourmet future while the taste of Old Lyons is still found in bistro-style bouchons like Le Musee, where the Laverriere sisters--Evelyne, Martine and Aline--keep tradition alive and lively.

Lyons' World Cup agenda includes nightly light shows, transmission of the France vs. Denmark match on a huge outdoor screen in the Place Bellecour and live broadcasts of every match on outdoor screens around town.