Swiss National Museum

Swiss National Museum

Landesmuseum
Location within Switzerland
Established	1898
Location	Museumstrasse 2, Zürich, Switzerland
Type	National museum
Website	landesmuseum.ch/en

The museum building of 1898 in the historicist style was built by Gustav Gull in the form of the French Renaissance city chateaus. His impressive architecture with dozens of towers, courts and his astonishing park on a peninsula between the rivers Sihl and Limmat has become one of the main sights of the Old City district of Zürich. Its inauguration was filmed by François-Henri Lavanchy-Clarke, the first non-french concessionary of the Lumière brothers.

The exhibition tour takes the visitor from prehistory through ancient times and the Middle Ages to the 20th century (classic modern art and art of the 16th, 17th and 18th century is settled mainly in the Kunsthaus Museum in a different part of the city of Zürich). There is a very rich section with gothic art, chivalry and a comprehensive collection of liturgical wooden sculptures, panel paintings and carved altars. Zunfthaus zur Meisen near Fraumünster church houses the porcelain and faience collection of the Swiss National Museum. There are also: a Collections Gallery, a place where Swiss furnishings are exhibited, an Armoury Tower, a diorama of the Battle of Murten, and a Coin Cabinet showing 14th, 15th, 16th century Swiss coins and even some coins from the Middle Ages.

The boats of the Zürichsee-Schifffahrtsgesellschaft start their round trips (Swiss National Museum–Wollishofen–Zürichhorn) on the Limmat through the city of Zürich at the Swiss National Museum.

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  Neolithic arrowhead, found at Estavayer FR.
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  Bronze statuette of the god Mercury, dressed in a toga and a winged hat, found in Uster.
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  Merovingian fibula in the shape of a fish, made from almandine wafers and silver leaf (6th century AD), found at Bülach inside a woman's tomb.
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  Gold cup discovered in Altstetten.

• Collection Center of the Swiss National Museum