Musée des Confluences: Coop Himmelb(l)au's Deconstructivist Science Museum in Lyon

Key facts

• The Musée des Confluences is a science museum in Lyon, France, designed by Austrian architectural firm Coop Himmelb(l)au.
• It was inaugurated in December 2014 and houses the collection of the Musée Guimet, a natural science museum founded in the second half of the 19th century.
• The museum is located at the southern end of the Presqu'île, at the confluence of the Rhône and Saône rivers.
• Coop Himmelb(l)au won an international design competition in 2001 to design the museum.
• The building has a gross floor area of 21,000 square meters, with 2,800 square meters for permanent exhibitions and 1,900 for temporary exhibitions.
• The structure consists of three parts: The Plinth (reinforced-concrete basement), The Crystal (steel and glass entrance hall), and The Cloud (four-level exhibition core).
• The museum's collections amount to over two million pieces collected between the 16th and 21st centuries.
• The permanent exhibition is divided into four sections: Origins, Species, Societies, and Eternities.