This permanent exhibition features both everyday objects and works of art and presents Swiss history from the Revolution to the Belle Époque. Spread over two floors, it explores issues of political and economic, social and cultural history.
It shows how the poor, agricultural nation that was Switzerland under the Ancien Régime transformed itself within six short generations into a modern, industrialised state. There is also information on the fascinating developments in medicine between the 18th and early 20th centuries, including the discovery of vaccines, the birth of dentistry and the invention of anaesthetics.
Other interesting topics include tourism, schools and school hygiene, emigration, middle-class life, the working world, the tools of a modern economy: telephones, dictaphones and calculators, railways and access to products from elsewhere (19th century).