Musée des Confluences

LYON

Musée des Confluences entrance hall, impressing, but a lot of empty not used place, A victory for the Architect, but too much unused space. Photo by Tomas Bagackas.

Visited by Henning Høholt and Tomas Bagackas (foto)

LYON/FRANCE: Situated on the confluence of the Rhone and the Saône, the Musée des Confluences is an absolute must-see in Lyon. Set in the heart of a monumental structure of metal and glass, the Musée des Confluences presents a journey through time and across continents to observe the world around us.

A view up the Rhóne river from Musée des Confluences. Foto Tomas Bagackas

An architecture based on confluences

When glass Crystal met stainless steel Cloud, the architecture of the musée des Confluences was born, inspired by the two converging bodies of water at its feet. Beneath its 33 metres of glasswork, the Crystal functions as an urban space: a space devoted to where the general public comes in and to the circulation of visitors, a place of encounter and exchange.

Musée des Confluences gangway in the hall, impressing, but a lot of empty not used place, A victory for the Architect, but too much unused space. Photo by Henning Høholt.

Over an area of 1,900 square metres, bathed in external daylight, the visitors prepare themselves to visit the museum

. At its centre, the Gravity Well, an architectural tour de force, carries the whole of the structure and swirls as if caught between the two rivers.

The visitor is then invited on a journey through the Cloud, constructed as a large vessel of approximately 11,000 square metres which, under its stainless steel cover, contains the treasures of the museum: the rooms dedicated to its permanent and temporary exhibits.

Architectural gangway at Musée des Confluences, Lyon

When we finally reach the roof, we enjoy an unrivalled view of Lyon and its river confluence. The whole is carried by a platform accessible to the general public: a place to stroll around a pool of water shining against stainless steel, arousing curiosity in a landscape of ramps and inclined planes which lead it to the garden: 24,400 square meters of green spaces and paths to the point where the rivers meet.

The rivers Rhóne and Saone meets each other at this place, seen from the roof of the Musée des Confluences.

INTERIOR DESIGN

When coming up to the Café at the very top, with a wonderful view, we entered the café quite ordinary interior, but wonderful designe sky lamps. Please enjoy them:

Wonderful lamps in the Café upper floor.

The building is using a lot of space to let the audience get in to the house. For me, Too much empty space, used for staircases, rolling steps. Of course I do see that it looks fantastic
.

ARCHITECTURAL MASTERWORKS ?

We were really impressed to attend the monumental museum building

. It is created in the modern way, actual right now, where the buildings often are having an architectural pompous building, and then (somewhere) inside we find, what the building really is build for. This is not ment negative. However, that is a fact.

The architectural elegant and wellformed bridge in front of the museum. A pearl.

I got the feeling here at this museum as at many of the new cultural houses of many different kinds that I have visited through the last many years, that the monumental outlook is very important, then what occassion it is build for is nearly being second.

Good roof light down through the central korridors in the Museums exposition part.

However, it is a pleasure to see how talented the architects is in this way, and how well they are developing their ideas to make some thing extraordinary.

Furthermore to get the pleasure of how well they, in this specially case is placing this museum elegant between the two rivers and also getting the water in, as a “lake” under the building is marvelous well made
.

A lake under the museum buildings large body.

At the same time, I too notice that they are getting ideas from their famous colleagues all over the world. – Why shouldn´t they?

Solar heating at the roof.

Of course, this is my personal opinion. If we look backwards in to the history and for example look to some of the worlds most famouse opera houses in the world, Palais Garner in Paris, and to other museums as for example Louvre in Paris, all of them has large entre parts, where people can meet before and in the breaks of the performances or expositions .

Architectural forms.

This has, in one way, to do with the logistic to get them all in and out smoothly and for security reasons fast and safe. But also to take care of the social part of attending a performance, a show or an exposition. The places who has forgotten that, they are loosing this important possibility for people to meet each other, and to have the pleasure of arriving, looking forward to what will happen now, what are we going to see?

museedesconfluences.fr

Musee des Confluences, Lyon. Foto Tomas Bagackas