The best museums Italian Switzerland

The relatively new Lugano Cultural Center - LAC is dedicated to the visual and performing arts, as well as to music. Facing the lake, in a highly contemporary architectural style that cannot be missed (volume of 180,000^m3), the complex is spread over three floors and boasts a huge hall, an avant-garde auditorium and a museum space. It is home to the Museo d'Arte della Svizzera Italiana, which focuses on modern and contemporary art.

This is a new museum born from the merger of the Museum of Modern Art of Lugano and the Cantonal Museum of Art of the city. Part of the museum is on the new site of the LAC - Lugano Arte Cultura. It houses the permanent collection (free of charge) which includes notable works by artists. But also temporary exhibitions enlighten visitors about international modernist and contemporary artists. The other part of the museum is housed in the Palazzo Reali.

In an unusual location, a former pasta factory, lies a museum like no other. Model train enthusiasts will be in for a treat: miniature trains, fully digitally controlled models, electric trains and the latest from the manufacturers. Over a surface area of 2,320^m2 and three floors, the equivalent of 2,500 m of track is on display, featuring 3,000 models from the GB collection and numerous private collections. From Napoleonic trains to military armor, model railroading is the main focus of the museum. Well organized and warmly welcomed.

The chocolate museum of the Alprose chocolate company, whose origins date back to 1957, presents the wonderful world of chocolate from its origins to the present day. You're immersed in the heart of chocolate! In addition to its valuable didactic role, the museum helps to affirm the tradition of Swiss chocolate. At the very heart of the Alprose factory, from the top of a footbridge, you can observe the different phases of chocolate production: from the liquefaction of cocoa to the packaging of the finished product.

A German poet, poet and painter, Hermann Hesse adopted Swiss citizenship in 1924 and lived in Montagnola until his death in 1962. The light of the Collina d'Oro fascinated the artist. Many celebrities (including Theodore Heuss, Thomas Mann and Bertolt Brecht) came to Montagnola to Visit him. The museum retains valuable testimonies of the last 43 years of Hermann Hesse, including books in the garden. The Balisé d'Oro can be admired along the marked route «On the steps of Hermann Hesse».

Opened in 1989, this museum permanently exhibits the famous Brignoni-Aramis donation. Serge Brignoni (1903-2002) was a Swiss Italian artist - painter and sculptor - who decided in 1985 to bequeath his collection to the city of Lugano. Since then, supplemented by other donations, inside this museum we discover a rich collection of objects of ethnological, historical and artistic interest from Oceania (Melanesia, Polynesia), Indonesia (Kalimatam, Bali...) and Africa (Ibo, Senufo...). Regular temporary exhibitions.

The first and only Ticino museum for children, it is also the first external branch of the Musée en herbe de Paris. It offers educational and interactive exhibitions related to the world of art. The whole museography is based on humour and play, which is ideal for getting children interested without them getting bored. There are many workshops proposed either for children alone or in duo with an adult. A nice moment of sharing in anticipation! Count between two and four hours to go around without hurrying.

It is part of the defensive wall of the fortified city between the 13th and 15th centuries. True intact vestiges of the Middle Ages, they bear witness to the military importance of building large protective walls around the towns. Decorated by the architects Mario Campiet Franco Pessina, it is divided into two cells. Fifteenth-century capitals, drawings, sketches and engravings by artists, guns and firearms make up the first part. The second section, known as the archaeological section, contains numerous objects from Ticino. Magnificent!

This house, which housed an inn in the 15th and 16th centuries and is now the home of the Leventine Museum, has a richly decorated façade with frescoes dating from 1589. The coats of arms of famous people who have stayed there can also be seen. Folk art adorns the museum's exhibits: collections of objects of ordinary life, artistic works, and sacred objects. The simple and hard life of the mountain people is shown in a sincere way. This museum aims to be "ethnographic" and heritage.

After two years of renovation work on this imposing 1834 building, once a customs post and inn, the Gotthard National Museum has reopened its doors with a new offering: a permanent exhibition and multimedia show on the Gotthard, retracing the history of this strategic communication route through the Southern Alps, an information point and a restaurant. Another new feature is the presence of the Swiss Alpine Museum, with temporary exhibitions.

The house, built in the th century, recognizes the crests of the first Swiss cantons adorning its facade. Inside, collections are varied and interesting, including the collection of arms, as well as those of ethnographic sections and sacred art.

Housed in a neoclassical building designed by the architect Luigi Fontana, the museum was established in 1985 to present to the public a collection of ethnographic materials relating in particular to traditional economic activities and the social and religious life of the region. The permanent exhibition highlights the rustic civilization, the activities and the moments of the life of the population of Malcantone until the middle of our century: hunting, fishing, agriculture, handicraft and sheep breeding.

200 million years ago, the region was submerged beneath the waters of the Mediterranean. This small museum illustrates Monte San Giorgio's geological past. Designed by renowned architect Mario Botta, the 4-storey building was inaugurated in 2012. It showcases the extraordinary plant and animal fossils found here from 240 to 180 million years ago (Triassic). A wide variety of marine fossils can also be admired. This completely renovated museum is exciting and interactive: ideal for a visit with children.

Housed in the magnificent setting of the former Servite convent, the museum has a permanent collection of 400 art objects, but it is the temporary exhibitions that are most interesting. The Art Museum offers exhibitions of renowned artists. In recent years, these have been devoted to Klee, Braque, Giacometti, Wotruba and other great local artists. The museum's highlights are the 650 transparencies executed at the end of the 18th century and the collection of works illustrating local life from the 16th to the 20th century.

In a beautiful 19th century building, one of the first ethnographic museums in the canton is housed. You will find mainly works by local artists in the permanent collection, but also occasional events and exhibitions. You will discover an oil press and a wood-fired oven used at the time. On the two floors, you will find a reconstructed kitchen and a production of espadrilles, reminding us that there was a factory in Intragna.

Monte Verità, set in the hills overlooking Ascona and Lake Maggiore, has always been a pole of attraction and convergence of ideas, trends, experiments and historic personalities. The alternative and vegetarian colony of the early ^20th century created the myth of Monte Verità, which soon became a meeting place for anarchists, philosophers and intellectuals. The Ascona hill was first home to a sanatorium, then an artists' community around the 1920s, before being purchased by Eduard von der Heydt, a German banker and art collector. It then became a modern hotel resort, welcoming celebrities from the worlds of art, politics and culture. On the Baron's death, it was ceded to the canton of Ticino. Today, it is a multi-purpose institution comprising a cultural and museum center, hotel, restaurant and conference center. The park features Casa Selma, a small air-light hut built in 1904 by the first settlers, and Casa Anatta. The Casa Anatta has been restored as a center for a wide variety of exhibitions on subjects such as utopia and the reform of the soul. The main building houses the exhibition "Monte Verità. Le mammelle della verità" by Harald Szeemann, which presents various aspects of the hill's history. The Padiglione Elisarion in the park houses the painting Chiaro mondo dei beati(Clear World of the Blessed), painted between 1919 and 1929 by Elisar von Kupffer, a painter, poet, historian and playwright from the Baltic nobility.

Housed in a patrician house, it presents temporary exhibitions of modernist artists. In the first half of the twentieth century, many painters chose Ascona as a retreat, thinking they would find inspiration in this place of work. Some of them even settled here and ended up bequeathing some of their works to the town, which led to the creation of a municipal museum such as Paul Klee, Richard Seewald or Italo Valenti...

The Valmaggia Museum, through its studies and thematic exhibitions, shows the reality of an Alpine valley, its architectural heritage, its traditions and its riches. Note the 17th century gate in the town wall that leads to the building that houses the museum. Do not miss the monumental gate, a portal dating back to the 17th century, placed in the wall of the village, which gives access to a building that houses the museum of Vallemaggia. Visit the various historical places such as the wine press or the grotti.

Perched at an altitude of 1,500 m, this eco-museum, consisting of a group of wooden chalets, preserves the architectural heritage of the region. The wooden houses are typical of the area: the Walserhaus. In this region, the inhabitants speak an ancient Walser dialect, whose origins date back to the Middle Ages. Thanks to this museum, the traditions live on. Architectural elements, such as buildings with larch-beam walls and poplar roofs, are preserved. The museum contains rich objects of Walser tradition.