Guimet Museum

The Guimet Museum stands out for its curved, corner-hugging facade topped by a delicate glass rotunda. Emile Guimet, an industrialist from Lyon, founded this collection after a journey through Asia in eighteen seventy-six. He wanted to document the religious practices he encountered, specifically building this space to house his vast haul of statues and scrolls. Even after the state took over the museum in eighteen eighty-five, the galleries remained packed with his original acquisitions, gathered before international trade made such artifacts common.