The natural history museum, was designed by architect Paul Benoit Barillon and was built within the Botanical Garden, just outside the city, from 1848-1851. Under the direction of curators Hippolyte Bouteille and Luis Rérolle, the museum, with 3000 m2 of exhibition halls, was quickly filled with collections hailing from all of the world's continents.
The Museum's collections, studied and classified, are regularly displayed within permanent or temporary exhibits, used as a pedagogical and cultural support for various audiences and are the setting from various activities such as workshops, film showings, conferences, and debates.

With eight accessible rooms, the Natural History Museum of Grenoble offers its visitors a conservation site for the area's natural heritage and a remarkable body for sharing scientific knowledge.

Room of the Living Mountain
This long room, decorated with walnut woodwork, takes up the entire central wing of the building on the second floor.

It is made up of 16 dioramas, lateral window displays, and a modular central area.

Above each window hangs a circular terra cotta medallion sculpted between 1870 and 1874 by Charles-Aimé Irvoy. Each portrays a famous scientist.
The highly refined scenography questions the visitor, interrogating each of his senses.

This room was designed to serve as a meeting place with the natural world and the different animal species, a place to visit before or after an excursion into the actual natural world, to compare one's impressions on-site with the museum's specimens.

The room is hardly stagnant, closed to the outside world. It is rather a dynamic exhibit, open to the Alpine world where one can explore the natural diversity from diorama to diorama.

Crystal Symphonie Room
This 13 faceted cavern presents the visitor with a curious and marvellous invitation into the crystal world. Mineral from some of the world's largest mineralogical sites are presented. Unusual shapes and colors make visitors wonder just how such creations were formed.

Atlas Room
"You can see, feel, hear, and turn the pages of the giant book of the planet."
The interactive element of this room seeks to spark children's curiosity.

The various games in front of the display windows create a strong interaction between the youngest visitors, their parents, and the objects presented.

Here, one can see, hear, and touch all at the same time.

Two different environments, along with the mammals that inhabit them, are there to marvel visitors: a temperate forest, and an African savannah.

Birth of the Alps
What were the Alps like before? This near permanent exhibit was recently renovated and allows visitors to situate and understand the formation of the Alps in the context of the Earth's long history. From window to window, the visit begins in the Archean era and moves through geological time towards the Quaternary era.

Alpine mineralogical sites
The Dauphiné mountains most typical specimens and the crystal discoveries from the Alps' most famous mines are presented here.

In the Earth's own words
The evolution of life as told by exceptional fossils.
101 original pieces, from some of the world's largest fossil sites, are displayed in this new room.
A sober, contemporary museography, thought out for the most diverse audience possible, where the furniture and the use of space suggest the indispensable mapping grid so dear to professional archeologists. The lay out highlights the beauty of the objects, the evocative strength of the the fossil, still embedded in its gangue.

The Botanical Garden
A magnificent garden belonging to the Natural History Museum, the gardent presents rare trees, 300 m2 of botanical greenhouses, 700m2 of winter gardens, for a total of 20,000 m2.
The first botanical garden of Grenoble was founded in 1782. It was re-established in 1842 on a plot of land purchased by the city, between the rue Haxo and the rue Chanrion.