Modern Lyon
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Skyscraper in Villeurbanne © Gerald Reman

On the skyline from Fourvière, you'll see a gleaming cylinder with a pointed top – a tower that belongs to Lyon's home-grown Crédit Lyonnais bank – and other Manhattanish protuberances around it. This is La Part-Dieu, a business–culture–commerce conglomerate including one of the biggest public libraries outside Paris, a mammoth concert hall and a shopping centre said to be the largest in Europe (Mº Part-Dieu). On the corner of rue Garibaldi and cours Lafayette in front of these less than homely structures are the main market halls of Lyon.

For a break from city buildings head north to the Parc de la Tête d'Or (bus #4 from Part-Dieu or métro to Masséna, then walk up rue Masséna), where there are ponds and rose gardens, botanical gardens, a small zoo and lots of amusements for kids. It's overlooked by the bristling antennae of the international headquarters of Interpol, part of a new Cité Internationale, which also includes a new Musée d'Art Contemporain, at 81 Cité Internationale, quai Charles-de-Gaulle (Wed–Sun noon–7pm; www.moca-lyon.org; €3.81; bus #4, stop "Musée d'Art Contemporain"). The museum owns the largest public collection of installation art in the world, hosts excellent temporary exhibitions and is also the one of the homes of the Lyon art biennial. Designed by Renzo Piano, it's a curious-looking structure with a 1930s Neoclassical facade on the park side and a pink concrete box tacked onto the river side. The colour echoes the adjacent Palais des Congrès conference centre, whose front is masked by a glass screen curving up over the roof, reminiscent of Jean Nouvel's Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris. There are some screens, catwalks and companionways: the features that have become part of the currency of architectural language since the Pompidou Centre first shocked the world. But it looks good, and will look better when the area around it ceases to resemble a building site. To the east, dividing the park and the university, is boulevard de Stalingrad, where antique-fanciers can browse in the Cité des Antiquaires arcades at no. 117 (Thurs, Sat & Sun 9.30am–12.30pm & 2.30–7pm; summer closed Sun afternoon).

In Villeurbanne, not far to the east of Part-Dieu, is a second Musée d'Art Contemporain, 11 rue Dr-Dolard (June–Sept Wed 1–8pm, Thurs–Sun 1–7pm; Oct–May Wed–Sun 1–6pm; www.i-art-c.org; €4; bus #1, stop "Nouveau Musée"), where thought-provoking and engaging exhibitions by contemporary artists question the function of art and architecture and their relation to society. It's also worth looking out for exhibitions at Villeurbanne's Maison du Livre de l'Image et du Son, to the east on avenue Émile-Zola (Mº Flachet), which might feature anything from medieval illuminations to CD-ROMs.

Further south, on the edge of the 8e arrondissement, is the Institut Lumière, 25 rue du Premier-Film (Tues–Sun 11am–7pm; www.institut-lumiere.org; €5.50; Mº Monplaisir/Lumière). The building was the home of Antoine Lumière, father of Auguste and Louis, who made the first films, and the exhibits feature early magic lanterns and the cameras used by the brothers, along with various art photographs. The Institut also shows several different films nightly, check their website for the schedule.

Right down in the south of the city, in the Gerland quartier (7e), is a newly developed area with a marina and a park on the Rhône's east bank, which provides an illusion of nature around the mirrored Institut Pasteur and the thrusting wings and arches of the École Normale Supérieure. Across the bridge from the southern tip of the Presqu'île, just off place Antonin Perrin squats the massive Tony Garnier Hall (Mº Debourg), whose 17,000 cubic metres is completely free of roof-supporting columns. Its walls graced with contemporary murals, it is now the main host to Lyon's art biennial – a major European show of new art convened here every other year (July–Sept in odd-numbered years).