Dome

Art installation on site; The Lyon Convention Centre (part of the district known as the Cité Internationale) was built on the bank of the Rhône river to enable Lyon to host major international conferences. The river lies on one side of the 15 hectare site, the Parc de la Tête d’Or on the other. It includes underground public parking of 1,200 spaces (total area parking is 3,350 spaces), an exhibition area of 8,400 m2, 26 meeting rooms, a residential hotel (104 units), a 4-star hotel, three auditoriums and a 4000-m2 public square. It can accommodate up to 19,000 people. The facades of the complex cover almost a kilometer. It is also a performance venue. The rest of the Cité Internationale includes offices, restaurants, a casino, cinema, and a museum of contemporary art. The scheme is composed of pairs of buildings, built in phases, on either side of a central pedestrian street, and creates new visual and physical links between the park and the river. Clad in terracotta, this was the first RPBW project to introduce an extra outer layer of glass facade, enclosing an air gap that acts as a heat exchanger. Source: Renzo Piano Building Workshop [firm website]; http://www.rpbw.com/ (accessed 7/8/2014)