Museums in Lyon

The Musée Miniature et Cinéma occupies a stunning 16th-century Renaissance building in the heart of Vieux Lyon. It combines two obsessions: painstakingly hyperrealistic miniature scenes by artist Dan Ohlmann and an extensive collection of original special effects props and costumes from Hollywood films.

The Musée Lumière occupies the Art Nouveau family villa of Auguste and Louis Lumière, the brothers who invented cinematography. Located in the Monplaisir neighborhood where they shot the world's first film in 1895, this museum is a pilgrimage site for cinema lovers worldwide.

Housed in a magnificent 17th-century former Benedictine abbey on Place des Terreaux, the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon is considered the finest art museum in France outside the Louvre. Its 70 rooms span antiquities to modern art across a staggering breadth of European painting and sculpture.

The Musée des Confluences is a spectacular science and anthropology museum housed in a dramatic deconstructivist glass-and-steel building at the exact point where the Rhône and Saône rivers merge. Designed by Austrian firm Coop Himmelb(l)au, the building itself is as much an attraction as the collections inside.

The Musée des Tissus et des Arts Décoratifs houses one of the world's finest textile collections — over 2.5 million pieces spanning 4,500 years of fabric arts. It is uniquely Lyon's museum, reflecting the city's identity as the historic silk capital of Europe.

The Musée de l'Imprimerie et de la Communication Graphique documents the history of printing from Gutenberg to the digital age. Housed in a 15th-century Renaissance building in the Presqu'île, it celebrates Lyon's pivotal role as one of Europe's first and most important printing centers.

Lugdunum – Musée et Théâtres Romains is the unified archaeological complex comprising the underground Gallo-Roman museum and the adjacent open-air Roman theatres on Fourvière hill. Together they form the most complete Roman heritage site in Lyon.

The Musée d'Art Contemporain de Lyon (macLYON) occupies a modernist building by Renzo Piano on the edge of the Parc de la Tête d'Or. Uniquely, the museum has no permanent collection on display — instead, it entirely reconfigures its 6,000 m² of raw space for each temporary exhibition.

The Centre d'Histoire de la Résistance et de la Déportation is a deeply moving museum housed in the former Gestapo headquarters where Klaus Barbie — the 'Butcher of Lyon' — conducted interrogations and torture during the Nazi occupation. The building itself is a testament to Lyon's dark wartime chapter.

The Maison des Canuts is a working museum dedicated to Lyon's silk-weaving heritage, located in the heart of the Croix-Rousse district. Live demonstrations on functioning 19th-century Jacquard looms bring the craft and its extraordinary history vividly to life.

The Musée Gallo-Romain (now part of the Lugdunum museum) is built directly into the hillside beside the Roman theatres, its concrete walls spiraling underground. The collection magnificently documents Lugdunum's status as the capital of Roman Gaul from the 1st century BC.