Musée des Confluences | Coop Himmelb(l)au

The Musée des Confluences in Lyon, France, is currently under construction and scheduled for completion in 2014.  The museum is designed by COOP HIMMELB(L)AU, in coordination with local architects and engineers.  The goal of the design is the development of a space that is at once a museum for accrued knowledge, a public space of discourse, and an urban leisure space. The building is hybrid of multiple typologies in an effort to align itself with the principles of the museum, which presents itself as a public place that provides access to the knowledge of our age.

 “Innovations develop within inter-spaces, within indistinctness, within the overlapping and hybridizing. Questions regarding the future will be decided within transitional fields situated between technology, biology and ethics that are the central themes of the Musée des Confluences.” The architects’ describes

The resulting architecture is a mutation of form, characterized by the hybridization of various programmatic functions and building typologies.  The different components combine to create the new shape of the museum, which is an extension of the park on the southern tip of the island on which the building is located.  The landscape of the interior and exterior consists of ramps and surfaces that transition between inside and outside, creating a dynamic sequence of spatial events. The various exhibition halls have unique spatial structures that can alternate and change the architecture to accommodate different events.

Project info:
Architects: Coop Himmelb(l)au
Country: France, Lyon
Year: 2006
Photographs: Helmut Swiczinsky, Quentin Lafont
Area: 46476.0 m2
Architect in Charge: COOP HIMMELB(L)AU Wolf D. Prix, Helmut Swiczinsky + Partner
Design Principal: Wolf D. Prix
Project Partner: Markus Prossnigg
Project Architects: Mona Bayr, Angus Schoenberger
Project Coordination: Thomas Margaretha, Peter Grell
Local Architect, Planning: Patriarche & Co, Chambéry/Lyon, France
Project Team Vienna: Christopher Beccone, Guy Bébié, Lorenz Bürgi, Wolfgang Fiel, Kai Hellat, Robert Haranza, Alex Jackson, Georg Kolmayr, Daniel Kerbler, Lucas Kulnig, Andreas Mieling, Marianna Milioni, Andrea Schöning, Mario Schwary, Markus Schwarz, Oliver Tessmann, Dionicio Valdez, Philipp Vogt, Markus Wings, Tom Wiscombe, Christoph Ziegler, Jutta Schädler
Project Team Lyon: Francois Texier, Philippe Folliasson, Etienne Champenois, Alexandru Gheorghe, Niels Hiller, Emanuele Iacono, Pierre-Yves Six
Landscape Design: EGIS aménagement, Lyon, France
Project Management: Chabanne & Partenaires, Lyon, France
Construction Survey: Jean Pierre Debray
Structural Engineering Design: B+G Ingenieure, Bollinger und Grohmann GmbH, Frankfurt, Germany
Structural Engineering: Coyne et Bellier, Lyon, France VS_A, Lille, France
Site Area: 20975 sqm
Net Floor Area: 26700 sqm
Gross Floor Area: 46476 sqm
Building Costs: EUR 150 Mio
Frequence of Visitors: 500.000 visitors per year