Lyon Housemuseum facts for kids
The Lyon Housemuseum is a special place in Melbourne, Australia. It's a mix of a home and a modern art museum. Here, you can see the amazing Lyon Collection of Australian contemporary art. The building was specially designed for this purpose.
You can visit the Housemuseum on certain days by booking a tour. It's also open for school trips and other events. The museum even has talks about modern art and architecture. They publish a book each year from these talks.
What's Inside: The Art Collection
The Lyon Collection started in 1990. It was created by art lovers Corbett Lyon and Yueji Lyon. This collection shows important Australian art from the 1990s until today.
It has over 350 artworks! These include paintings, sculptures, and even video art. More than 50 artists have their work displayed here. Some famous Australian artists in the collection are Howard Arkley, Patricia Piccinini, Brook Andrew, Shaun Gladwell, and Matthew Sleeth.
Designing the Housemuseum
Architect Corbett Lyon designed the Housemuseum building. His company, Lyons, worked on it from 2003 to 2005. The building was finished in 2008. It first opened to the public with an art show in 2009.
Corbett Lyon got ideas from other famous museums. He visited the Sir John Soane's Museum in London and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice. He wanted to explore how art and daily life can mix. He also wanted to challenge ideas about public and private spaces.
The design mixes museum areas with home spaces. This makes it hard to tell where the house ends and the museum begins. It creates a cool setting for the artworks.
The inside walls are covered with wooden panels. These panels have words and texts printed on them, created by the Lyon family. The outside of the building is covered in black zinc. The front fence shows the two street names of the building's corner. These names are made from tall, decorative bricks.
In 2010, the Housemuseum won a big award. It received the Australian Institute of Architects' Harold Desbrowe-Annear Award. This is Victoria's top award for home architecture. Also in 2010, a group called Larry's List said it was one of the "10 most exciting buildings of private museums" in the world.
New Art Galleries
An addition to the Housemuseum was finished in 2019. It's on the land next door.
This new building is called the Housemuseum Galleries. It has big, flexible spaces for art shows. It will display more works from the Lyon Collection. It will also host art, architecture, and design shows from Australia and around the world. The Lyon Foundation manages these new Galleries. This foundation is a non-profit group. It was started in 2012 by Corbett and Yueji Lyon to support public art.
