It is located at the southern tip of the Presqu’île at the confluence of the Rhône and the Saône, adjacent to Autoroute A7, and comprises part of a larger redevelopment project of the Confluence quarter of Lyon. The deconstructivist architectural design, said to resemble a floating crystal cloud of stainless steel and glass, was created by the Austrian firm Coop Himmelbau.

The museum includes collections of natural science, anthropology, and Earth Sciences of the Musée d’histoire naturelle – Guimet. These collections will be supplemented by exhibitions of arts and crafts.

The four major exhibitions are called “Origins – Stories of the World”, “Species – the Web of life”, “Societies – Human theatre,” and “Eternities – Visions of the beyond”.

The first exhibition deals with questions of origin, both the Big Bang theory, history of the universe, as well as the birth of life and evolution of especially humans. The second exhibition, “Species”, explores the links between humans and animals, and evolution of different species. The third exhibition, “societies” is about human societies and how humans build communities. And finally, “Eternities” deals with the meaning of life, the inevitable death of humans, and how that question has been dealt with in different societies.