Located in the heart of the peninsula, in the Hôtel de la Couronne – remarkable Renaissance Building Classified Monument Historic monument – the printing museum began the work of a renovation which aims for several objectives: strengthening the readability of the museum route, improving the conditions for conservation of works, modernizing the reception and exhibition spaces, improving the energy performance of the building and proposing better accessibility to all audiences. A modernization motivated also by frequentation multiplied by four between 2012 and 2025.
Screening for screen printing with Papyart in the courtyard of the Lyon museum.
The estimated cost of the work amounts to 5.4 million euros, to which are added 600,000 euros for the moving of its collections. Rights mainly taken care of by the City of Lyon as part of a vast plan to modernize municipal cultural equipment of 144 million euros launched in 2020, with 366 projects, including the renovation of subsistence (from October 2025 to June 2027) or Kennedy dance workshops (until August 2026).
Court of the Printing and Graphic Communication Museum in Lyon.
© Printing Museum
The museum renovation project has been the most important since its creation. Founded in 1964 on the initiative of the mayor Louis Pradel and the librarian and historian Marius Audin, the museum was part of the legacy of Lyon, which was in the 15th and 16th centuries one of the great European capitals of the book. Long devoted to the history of printing, it has gradually widened its field to graphic arts, typographic design and contemporary visual communication, becoming a rare place in Europe by the extent of its words.
Its collections, rich in typographic presses, old machines, mobile characters, rare works, posters, newspapers and modern graphic creations, illustrate five centuries of evolution of printed supports. The museum retraces the main stages of the history of printing techniques, but also that of the trades linked to them: typographers, founders, printers, publishers, graphic designers … Place of memory and transmission, the museum is also a space for creation, which regularly organizes temporary exhibitions dedicated to comics, contemporary typography, advertising or even digital culture.
Museum of printing and graphic communication in Lyon.
