According to Progressfollowing a meeting between elected officials and municipal services on September 22, the City retained the scenario of equipment primarily for events and culture for the Guimet Museum. If the information from Progrès suggests a possible opening by 2032-2033, the scenario remains subject to an important element: the financing of the 50 million euros envisaged.
As owner of the building, the municipality would remain the main sponsor of the project, but the possibility of joint financing with the Métropole de Lyon, the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region or the State could be considered. The possibility of setting up a long lease was also raised, allowing the building to be entrusted to a private or public operator for a long term, who will make investments in it in return. The City also plans to call on private sources of financing.
The elected officials showed pragmatism by retaining the most expected formula among all those mentioned, choosing to maintain the establishment in a fairly traditional model. The reconversion promises to be much more institutional than the “Sports Casino” project, which would have made the old museum into a multi-purpose hall dedicated to sports and well-being activities, but also more museum-like than the “Guimet Foundation”, which planned to combine culture, research and patronage according to a public-private partnership model.
The “new” Guimet Museum project (without collection) responds to a hybrid model, both event-based and cultural. On the agenda, exhibitions and cultural events, immersive formats, as well as institutional and professional events. But the project also includes a component dedicated to the conservation and enhancement of the heritage elements of the building, which requires significant modernization work.
The budget initially planned for the complete renovation of the building was to be between 43 and 48 million euros. The amount had to be revised upwards. This is because the project promises to be important: in a state of serious disrepair, the neoclassical building from the end of the 19th century must be removed asbestos and lead removed, brought up to thermal standards, secured, and structural interventions must take place on the approximately 9,000 m2 of surface area.
View of the exhibition “1001 Reasons to (dis)OBEY” by Shepard Fairey at the Guimet Museum in Lyon in 2023.
If the project is still in its embryonic state, its validation appears like a light at the end of the tunnel. The future of Guimet had constituted, from 2023, one of the main subjects of disagreement between mayor Grégory Doucet and his assistant for culture Nathalie Perrin-Gilbert, finally dismissed from her delegation in May 2024 following a series of conflicts within the executive. The elected official was strongly opposed to the hypothesis of sale of the old natural history museum, mentioned within the majority, resolutely defending the maintenance of the establishment in the public domain. Ultimately, the orientation chosen for Guimet matches the conception of the former culture delegate, who managed to organize two temporary exhibitions there during her mandate.
The building has already experienced several lives. Built by the architect Jules Chatron for the Lyon industrialist and collector Émile Guimet, it was inaugurated in 1879 to house his museum of religions, created in particular from his travels in Egypt and the Far East. Failing to meet the hoped-for success in Lyon, Guimet transferred most of his collections to Paris, where his new museum opened in 1889. The Lyon building then successively became a brasserie, theater and ice rink, the latter being integrated in 1904 into a “Sports Casino”. The City acquired it at the beginning of the 20th century and installed the Natural History Museum there in 1913, associated with the Guimet Museum. Closed to the public in 2007, the ensemble saw its collections join the Musée des Confluences in 2014. Guimet has since only occasionally returned to public activity, notably with the Biennale of Contemporary Art and the exhibition dedicated to Shepard Fairey in 2023.
