Designed by architects Alain Moatti and Henri Rivière, the complex was based on two medieval dwelling houses in the city center, one of which was the birth of the creator of Egyptology, Jean François Champollion, in 1790. From the very beginning, it was decided that the museum in Figeac should bear his name, but its exposition is not limited to the ancient Egyptian writing systems - although the Champollion Hall is still there.
The architects were faced with a difficult task: to combine the architectural monuments, which are both buildings set aside for the museum, and modern methods of solving the interior space and design of the exposition, which are especially needed here, given the unusualness of the exhibits presented. It was necessary to interest the visitors, since their attention was offered a series of texts and signs that were absolutely incomprehensible to them. Moatti and Riviera responded by creating a distinct environment in the museum, encompassing the space in front of the façade, the courtyard and the roof of the building.
This emphatically mysterious, unusual for a modern person atmosphere, formed from the use of materials unusual for a modern building, such as copper, minimal lighting, bright colors, referring to the natural dyes of the ancients, made a visit to a museum similar to entering an ancient tomb or a cave temple. and the exhibits have turned from explanatory material into significant elements of the environment that deserve the most careful study.
The Gothic stone façade of Champollion's family house hides another, new - glass curtain wall with the thinnest sheets of copper glued to it. Holes are cut in the metal in the form of a thousand characters of 42 writing systems, from Chinese characters to the Georgian alphabet, from Etruscan and Aramaic writing to Maya and Dogon.
Between the two layers of the façade there is a space 1 m deep, where visitors of the first three floors of the museum can go (there are metal lattice galleries on these levels).
Sunlight enters the museum through the slots in the copper, and through them you can look at the city spread out below from the upper tier of the building. In the dark, the building glows like a magic lantern, and the light is partially transmitted by the thinnest sheets of metal.
The interior of the museum demonstrates a compromise between preserving medieval stone structures and complementing them with new structures of glass, steel and wood, which creates a subtle contrast as a result.
The lobby of the museum, where the visitor enters through the Gothic portal, complemented by the inscription "Museum of Writing" in Egyptian hieroglyphs, is a transition zone with a silvery steel structure of the ticket office and the obligatory museum shop; its red walls lead to a staircase completely painted in this color. It allows easy access to any of the seven exhibition halls spread over four floors of the building. At the same time, the architects have provided for the public a well-thought-out sightseeing route, involving another stop on the first level: in the Champollion memorial hall. Its exposition tells about the brilliant discovery of the French scientist and about his short life path; there is a small collection of ancient Egyptian artifacts, the walls are decorated with relief images of black glass hieroglyphs.
The rooms on the next floors are painted in different colors, marking the transition from culture to culture, from era to era. The main color of each room is reflected in the color of the floor, ceiling and wide area of the cornice, which is used for multimedia installations in almost all areas of the museum. The second hall is dedicated to writing as a phenomenon that unites all of humanity, its purpose and use, the main types of signs and codes.
Then four "historical" halls follow, and the tour ends in the seventh hall, spacious and bright, from where you can enjoy views of the city and the surrounding hills. This is a “digital lecture hall”, in which the viewer gradually returns to the modern world, the existence of which he almost forgot during his visit to the “Museum of Champollion and the Writings of the World”.
