---
node: spot_lyon_musee_des_confluences
type: spot
slug: musee_des_confluences
destination: dest_lyon
title: "Musée des Confluences"
lead: "The Musée des Confluences stands on the spit where the Rhône and Saône meet, in a steel-and-glass building by Coop Himmelb(l)au that opened in 2014. It is a science and anthropology museum organised by question rather than by discipline."
published: 2026-08-12
updated: 2026-08-12
image_file: spot_lyon_musee_des_confluences.jpg
image_source: "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Mus%C3%A9e_des_Confluences_from_the_Rh%C3%B4ne,_2025.jpg"
image_author: "Ronavni"
image_license: "CC BY-SA 4.0"
---

## Overview

The permanent galleries ask where we come from, what it means to be human, what societies do with death — mixing a mammoth skeleton, Egyptian mummies, Oceanic sculpture and a Foucault pendulum in the same argument. The building took a decade and vastly overran its budget, and Lyon argued about it throughout. Its cantilevered Crystal hall is free to enter without a ticket.

## Highlights

Start upstairs with Origins and work down; the sequence is designed to be read that way. The roof terrace looks along both rivers to the confluence itself. The surrounding Confluence district is Lyon's largest regeneration project and worth the walk back into town along the Saône.