The best museums to visit in the city of Geneva

With its large windows, vast rooms and expansive floors bearing the traces of longgone machinery, the former factory that now houses Mamco offers a spacious home for the works of art created for it. Each corner provides a distinctive element of the display space, which is completely redesigned three times a year without the classic distinction between permanent and temporary exhibitions. Since Mamco opened in 1994, the museum has staged 450 exhibitions with works dating from the 1960s to the present day. Mamco’s holdings include works by Christo, Martin Kippenberger, Jenny Holzer, Dan Flavin, Sarkis, Franz Erhard Walther and Sylvie Fleury, among many others.

The "Nuit des Bains" (baths night) is held three times a year - named this way because there used to be public baths here. During this event, the district is transformed into a large gallery and attracts thousands of art lovers and sightseers each night.

Overview of the exhibition programme: Further information

Alfred Baur, who resided in Geneva from the year 1900 onwards, collected over a period of 45 years, during his business trips, art objects from the Far East. The items span a thousand years as far as their date of manufacture is concerned. The collection includes objects made of ceramics or jade, snuff boxes, Japanese prints, netsuke (small carved figurines), furniture and swords.

Shortly before his death Baur acquired an elegant house near the Art and History Museum and the Russian Church. He established a foundation to house his collection and make it accessible to the public. In 1964 the "Fondation Alfred et Eugénie Baur-Duret" made the Baur collection accessible for public viewing. Since that time the collection has grown to over 9,000 works of art, thanks to several donations.

Animal cries, sounds and environmental rustlings convey a stunning sense of realism. The display is especially memorable for its beauty and clarity, its opulence and intelligence.
You may also explore a world of minerals - both terrestrial and extraterrestrial - with the exhibition of meteorites, precious and semi-precious stones and fossils.

The multi-disciplinary exhibitions focusing on archaeology, fine art and applied art promise multi-faceted insights into the history of art and evolution of culture from prehistory to the present day. The heart of the museum, which opened in 1910, consists of its art collections. Highlights of the department for applied arts include musical instruments, watches, jewellery and textiles along with Byzantine art and icons. The fine art section gathers collections of work ranging from the Middle Ages to the 21st century, and features important groups of paintings by Ferdinand Hodler, Félix Vallotton and Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot. One of the museum’s greatest treasures is the altarpiece painted by Konrad Witz in 1444, regarded as the first realistic portrayal of landscape in European painting.

Highlights

Autumn 2018
The spirit of Hodler in Genevan painting, Maison Tavel

8 February - 26 May 2019
Caesar and the Rhône. Ancient masterpieces from Arles

10 May 2019 - 5 January 2020
metamorphoses

5 April - 30 June 2019
mastering light, Claude Lorrain and the perception of the landscape

The museum has welcomed visitors to its location in the heart of the ​​Plainpalais district since 2001. Its wonderful collection of Genevese, Swiss and European watches and enamel works dating from the 16th to the 19th centuries lead visitors on a ​discovery tour through the origins of timekeeping. These historical collections are documented in the museum's own library, which is primarily dedicated to watches, musical automata and enamel miniatures, as well as the valuable timepieces created by the Geneva-based company since it was founded in 1839.

Three separate areas, each developed by a well-known exhibition architect, allow you to explore three major challenges in today’s world: Defending human dignity, Restoring family links, Reducing natural risks.

In a break with traditional museography, the exhibition is an adventure, initiating visitors into contemporary humanitarian action. It is an experience to be lived through first of all, then described during a second phase, so that visitors become actors within each theme. Strong messages embed themselves in their emotions. The exhibition is organised around three independently themed spaces designed by internationally renowned architects: Defending human dignity, Reconstructing the family link and Refusing fatality, which deals with prevention.

Within each zone, the visitor first of all enters a phase which aims at raising his awareness and during which he lives through an intense emotional experience. A second stage provides him with information and historical background, reminding him that the Red Cross is the oldest and largest humanitarian organisation in the world. In the «On the spot» area, a large interactive globe will show the latest news from the field.

All production phases are carried out in "Watchland": take a tour and experience it first-hand (only on request)!

One of Switzerland's most important museums is housed in a building constructed between 1903 and 1910, situated east of the Old Town of Geneva. Thematically categorized and separated collections are displayed in an area of 7,000 square meters. Important finds dating back to early history, prehistoric times and antiquity can be viewed in the Archeology Department.

The Department for Applied Art exhibits Byzantine Art, icons, musical instruments and textiles. The sector devoted to fine arts houses collections of paintings ranging from the Middle Ages to the 20th century. Furthermore, the collections include numerous works by Ferdinand Hodler, Félix Vallotton and Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot.

Albert works with unusual raw materials and occupies a leading position in the manufacture of modern jewellery. In 1999 he opened the Musée des Cabinotiers in Geneva. In the second half of the 18th century, the 400 Geneva watchmakers were called "cabinotiers" because of their tiny workshops (cabines) in the attics of houses. Multilingual tours are offered.

Until two years ago Geneva’s ethnographic museum (MEG) threatened to burst at the seams. Then, in 2014, the more than 80,000 museum exhibits found their rightful space - in the new building by the Zurich architects Marco Graber and Thomas Pulver. And it’s hard to oversee this bright building with bevelled façade, reminiscent of an Asian longhouse on the Carl Vogt Boulevard.

Inside you view a bright, enlightening and expansive cosmos in which the treasures of MEG are set out to their best advantage. The permanent exhibition entitled "The archives of human differences" clearly depicts how the different cultures have evolved and drawn apart over time.