A contrasting vision of the “Musée des Confluences”

Opened in Lyon at the end of 2014, the “Musée des Confluences” designed by the Austrian architectural firm Coop Himmelb(l)au is intended to be a true architectural sculpture.
Standing on a huge concrete base, it sits proudly in a unique and rare location for a major city, at the confluence of a majestic river and its largest affluent.

Architectural deconstructivision

With its faceted, somewhat flashy architecture, the “Crystal Cloud“, as it was named by its designers, is an unmissable architectural landmark at the southern entrance to Lyon, France.

Strass and facets

In the era of social networks and “selfie tourism”, the Musée des Confluences has become highly “Instagrammable” and it now participates, even more by its atypical and photogenic side than by its cultural side, to the tourist influence of Lyon.

The tourist office of the city of Lyon has understood this very well since it is now capitalizing on one of its rare modern architectural icons by placing its “tourist sculpture” ONLYLYON within reach of the architectural sculpture of the Austrian architects of Coop Himmelb(l)au.

Deconstructivist vision

The Musée des Confluences is representative of a deconstructivist philosophy of architecture.

Coop Himmelb(l)au expresses on his website, his will to create an “open and unstable architecture” and to produce architectural works as “functional sculptures”. The resulting architecture is both structurally complex and aesthetically unconventional.

The 3D design that is an intrinsic part of the creative process of this architectural firm led by Wolf D. Prix allows all the audacities and constructive fantasies.

Crystalline divergences

When you see the building and its rather chaotic global aspect, it is difficult to remain indifferent.

Even if this approach to architecture does not correspond to my personal taste, the fragmentation of forms generated by this real architectural origami makes the subject particularly interesting for an architectural photographer like me, who likes to compose with details.
I was thus able to build up a quantity of images, of which you can see a sample here, which enrich my personal library of minimalist architecture.

The Musée des Confluences, an atypical triptych

The Musée des Confluences is divided into three main elements: a basement, on which are placed the “Crystal“, a large glass roof constituting the entrance to the museum, and the “Cloud“, the main building in which the exhibition rooms are located.

State-of-the-art architecture

Built on alluvial land at the end of the Lyon presqu’île, at the intersection of the Rhône and the Saône, the Musée des Confluences appears to be a sort of immense futuristic vessel placed between two waters

The building needed to be stabilized by a concrete shell nearly 190 m long by 90 m wide and 8 m thick.

A base with “muscular pillars”

Semi-buried, the “Base” of the museum is made of reinforced concrete with a volume equivalent to a dozen Olympic swimming pools.

It contains, among other things, two auditoriums as well as technical spaces and parking lots that were partly reconfigured at the end of construction into storage spaces for the museum.

The hazards of construction meant that it took several attempts to find good supports below the levels of the two rivers.
The 536 support piers that hold up the base finally reached a depth of about 30 meters instead of the 19 meters initially planned.

Show-off architecture

The “Crystal”, a body-built glass roof

The name given to this section of the building could suggest a certain finesse or fragility, but the visible and very “muscular” metal structure of the whole gives rather the sensation of an extreme solidity. It is accessed by a wide staircase crossing the entire height of the base.

The 30-meter high glass roof is made of a steel structure covered with more than 500 m2 of glass.

At the stern of the Musée des Confluences, the “Crystal” is the immense main reception hall that welcomes visitors of all ages, with brains eager for knowledge?

An architectural punch

A completely superfluous architectural gesture, the “gravity well”, as its designers call it, is a demonstration of strength and emptiness that gives a “stoned” look to the metallic structure.

Adding an unnecessary central support, this shaft only further complicates the architecture of the museum and contributes to the final inordinate construction cost.

The futuristic gloubi-boulga architecture of the entrance hall echoes my personal minimalist and derisory version of an “end of the world” architecture imagined in the conclusion of one of my photographic reports dealing with brutalist architecture in Bordeaux, France.

A heavy “Cloud

The heart of the museum, comprising the exhibition spaces on 4 levels, the “Cloud” is composed of a 600-ton metal frame covered with numerous stainless steel plates that reflect the light in a spectacular way, which makes this part of the building particularly photogenic.

The 3D design shows through all the edges and many facets of the Cloud and the structure, raised for the most part, is supported by 14 posts and 3 large concrete pillars.

Crossbeams under the entrails

The “Cloud” with its multiple deformations and its bumpy underbelly which could evoke, for the most imaginative, the “Alien” movie, overhangs a water basin and allows a pedestrian crossing under the museum.

At the prow of the futuristic vessel, wide staircases give access to an esplanade partly covered by the “Cloud” and overhung by bleachers.

Several staggered access ramps connect the museum to the large confluence garden.

User-friendly forum

Despite its imposing stature, the building limits its footprint and frees up pleasant circulation spaces in which the people of Lyon and tourists are sure to stroll.

The place turns out to be quite popular with the young people of Lyon and often attracts a motley crew of creators, dancers, djs, acrobats, photographers and videographers, as I also frequently meet on the square in front of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris.