Musée Cinéma et Miniature

The Musée Cinéma et Miniature is a private museum at 60 Rue Saint-Jean in Vieux Lyon, in France's Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, devoted to film props, special-effects work and miniature art. It is the creation of Dan Ohlmann, a Lyon artist known for hyper-realistic miniature scenes. The museum has two main parts. One presents the craft of cinema, with masks, costumes and props from films, along with displays explaining how special effects and make-up are made. The other presents more than a hundred miniature scenes at tiny scale, including street corners, workshops, restaurants and interiors, built with such detail that they look like photographs until examined closely. Visitors move through a series of rooms in the old building, with lit display cases at close range, and the museum encourages a slow pace to notice small details. The museum sits in the heart of the old town, a few minutes from Place Saint-Jean and the cathedral, and Metro D to Vieux Lyon-Cathédrale Saint-Jean is about three minutes on foot. A visit takes around one and a half to two hours. Opening hours are about 10:00AM to 7:00PM on Saturday, Sunday and school holidays and about 10:00AM to 6:30PM on weekdays, with a reduced Tuesday morning, and the ticket desk closes one hour earlier, so confirmation at the museum website is wise. Admission is €22.90 for adults, €19.90 reduced and €17.90 for children. Saturday afternoons are the busiest times, and weekday late mornings are calmer. Because the rooms are narrow and displays are small, queues can form at popular scenes. Photography rules vary by room, so visitors should follow posted signs and staff instructions.