Pierre Hebbelinck: Palais Guimet & Dance house in Lyon (FR)

Restructuring the Palais Guimet and building a Maison de la Danse in Lyon.

After these many trips to the East, the industrialist Emile Guimet decided to create the Palais Guimet, a sort of museum of Asiatic religions, in 1879. Since it was created, the Palais has seen successive, atypical and prestigious programmes which have made it the epitome of the architecture now seeking to be restored. In this case, we are talking about reinventing the heritage of a bygone age by revealing the treasures of a heritage which has become lost in the mists of time, seeking to create a contemporary cultural facility resolutely visible from the city. Cohabitation between the existing archaeology museum and the new programme defined by the Maison de la Danse are resulting in gatherings spatially rewritten through the architectural work of those who pass through. The existing Rotunda is being scooped out and is thus becoming a splendid meeting place by virtue of zenithal light and the presence of two-way circular traffic. The cinema room, triple-height and situated in the heart of the building, plays with the levels using the route taken by the balcony and staircases. Thus, the architecture incites “being seen without being seen”. The extension accentuates this feeling and subtly plays with the materiality of striated and transparent glasses. It houses the staircase and the contemporary triangular stone of the Guimet edifice and thus creates a “theatre of shade and lights” as users circulate.

A project designed by the Atelier d'Architecture Pierre Hebbelinck in association with HBAAT.