A palm-sized café
Whole Lyon rooms miniaturised to eye-breaking precision.
Arnaud 25 — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Elliott Brown from Birmingham, United Kingdom — CC BY-SA 2.0 · Benoît Prieur — CC0 · Benoît Prieur — CC0
In one of Vieux Lyon's finest houses — the Renaissance Maison des Avocats — live two enchanting museums on one ticket: floors of miniatures and floors of cinema's tricks, together among France's most successful private museums. The miniatures are by the house artist Dan Ohlmann and world masters: complete rooms and streets scaled down to the edge of deception — a Lyon café with tired chairs, a barber's mirrors — details demanding a stare to believe they are palm-sized. The cinema floors hold real treasures: models, creatures and effects bought from major studios — including mechanisms from 'Perfume', scenes of which were shot in this very building — a living lesson in how illusions were made before digits and after.
Whole Lyon rooms miniaturised to eye-breaking precision.
Original creatures and effects from major films — illusion held in hand.
The pink Renaissance courtyard is worth the ticket itself.
60 Rue Saint-Jean, 69005 Lyon
Saint-Jean Cathedral, Vieux LyonSaint-Jean is old Lyon's heart and the seat of the 'Primate of the Gauls' — Lyon1 minute walk4.5
The Traboules of Old LyonThe traboules are Lyon's architectural secret: covered passages cutting through 3 minutes walk4.7
Gadagne MuseumsTwo museums in a single Renaissance mansion in the heart of Vieux Lyon: the muse3 minutes walk4.4
Pont BonaparteA bridge over the Saône linking the Presqu'île with the historic Vieux Lyon quar4 minutes walk4.4
Basilica of FourvièreThe Basilica of Fourvière crowns Lyon's white hill and shows from the whole city5 minutes walk4.9Among Lyon's most child-successful museums outright: miniatures are a giant game inverted, and the cinema floors mean monsters and creatures (some aesthetically scary — judge very small ones on the effects floor). Above six, guaranteed success.
Süskind's novel had its eighteenth-century Paris scenes filmed here in Vieux Lyon — the quarter most faithfully preserved from that age — with the Maison des Avocats itself on screen. The museum later bought the production pieces, making their display at the shooting site a rare closed circle.
Miniatures while the eye is fresh: their precision needs unspent staring. Then the effects, lighter in rhythm and louder in wonder — an order that climbs rather than descends.