Bern Historical Museum, Bern, Switzerland

The Bern Historical Museum is the second largest historical museum in Switzerland. It was designed by the Neuchâtel architect André Lambert and built in 1894. Since it was initially conceived as the Swiss National Museum (which the city of Zurich was later chosen to host), the architect took as his model various historic castles from the 15th and 16th centuries. An extension to the original museum building was completed in 2009.

The museum contains collections related to the history of Bern from prehistoric times to the present and other artefacts on permanent display from Asia, Oceania, America and Egypt. One of the most remarkable items in the collection is the Muri statuette group, a group of six Gallo-Roman bronze figurines.

Over the museum's entrance is a glass mosaic, 'The Age of History', featuring the figures of Poetry and History, made in 1900 by the Swiss painter Léo-Paul Robert.

First conceived as a temporary exhibition in 2005, the Einstein Museum became a museum dedicated to the life and work of Albert Einstein, who developed the Relativity Theory while living in Bern. The house where he lived (Einsteinhaus) in this period is also open to the public, but is located elsewhere in the city and charges separate entry fees.

References:

Wikipedia

Museums in Switzerland

User Reviews

Cindy Peng (2 months ago)
The museum is huge! We spent 2 really nice afternoons there and still haven’t been able to finish it yet. Great activity for a gloomy day alone or with company! (Could be really empty during the weekdays, and it gets a bit scary when no one is in the room with all the historically looking mannequins

Ognian Dimitrov (3 months ago)
We spent about 2 hours in the museum. The museum itself has a historical and archaeological part dedicated to the creation and history of Bern. There is also a small Egyptian museum, as well as a museum of cultures from Southeast Asia. The museum is interesting and well arranged, I recommend it.

eperke kiss (4 months ago)
Lovely place in Bern, I really like it!

caroline eghagha (5 months ago)
This museum is a two in one. There's the history museum and there's the Einstein museum and they are both really good. I discovered so much about Einstein's childhood. The objects in the other part were amaźing to see like the manual tooth drill

Flávia Mobili (5 months ago)
Really nice museum with many different things about Einstein. The first floor you can see a few Egyptian artifacts, the second floor is dedicated to Einstein and the third floor is 20th Century of Bern. To me Einstein's museum was the best, it has different galleries and it isn't completely restricted to his life. For example you can read a bit about other famous Jewish scientists. The entrance is a super cool effect with mirrors and you have many videos and documents.

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The famous Italian Medici family have given two queens to France: Catherine, the spouse of Henry II, and Marie, widow of Henry IV, who built the current Luxembourg palace. Maria di Medici had never been happy at the Louvre, still semi-medieval, where the fickle king, did not hesitate to receive his mistresses. The death of Henry IV, assassinated in 1610, left the way open for Marie's project. When she became regent, she was able to give special attention to the construction of an imposing modern residence that would be reminiscent of the Palazzo Pitti and the Boboli Gardens in Florence, where she grew up. The development of the 25-hectare park, which was to serve as a jewel-case for the palace, began immediately.

The architect, Salomon de Brosse, began the work in 1615. Only 16 years later was the palace was completed. Palace of Luxembourg affords a transition between the Renaissance and the Classical period.

In 1750, the Director of the King's Buildings installed in the wing the first public art-gallery in France, in which French and foreign canvases of the royal collections are shown. The Count of Provence and future Louis XVIII, who was living in Petit Luxembourg, had this gallery closed in 1780: leaving to emigrate, he fled from the palace in June 1791.

During the French Revolution the palace was first abandoned and then moved as a national prison. After that it was the seat of the French Directory, and in 1799, the home of the Sénat conservateur and the first residence of Napoleon Bonaparte, as First Consul of the French Republic. The old apartments of Maria di Medici were altered. The floor, which the 80 senators only occupied in 1804, was built in the middle of the present Conference Hall.

Beginning in 1835 the architect Alphonse de Gisors added a new garden wing parallel to the old corps de logis, replicating the look of the original 17th-century facade so precisely that it is difficult to distinguish at first glance the old from the new. The new senate chamber was located in what would have been the courtyard area in-between.

The new wing included a library (bibliothèque) with a cycle of paintings (1845–1847) by Eugène Delacroix. In the 1850s, at the request of Emperor Napoleon III, Gisors created the highly decorated Salle des Conférences, which influenced the nature of subsequent official interiors of the Second Empire, including those of the Palais Garnier.

During the German occupation of Paris (1940–1944), Hermann Göring took over the palace as the headquarters of the Luftwaffe in France, taking for himself a sumptuous suite of rooms to accommodate his visits to the French capital. Since 1958 the Luxembourg palace has been the seat of the French Senate of the Fifth Republic.

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