This section contains an overview of the most relevant exhibitions in Switzerland and neighbouring regions. Each item is connected to the organizing museum.
The exhibition shows 170 million year-old finds of echinoderms from the Swiss Jura. The highlight of the exhibition is a rock slide showing a sea urchin, starfish, brittle stars, crinoids and sea cucumbers. This site in the Jura region was the scene of a major storm 170 million years ago. The fallen animals were covered in fine-grained mud. This great disaster became a stroke of luck for the paleontologists.
The exhibition Giants and Dwarves (Géants et Nains is on show until August 2022) presents the exhibition Gold and light – Prestigious bindings (En habits de lumière) the diversity in size and weight of books (from 4.5 mm to giants over one metre). This exhibition pays homage to the art of bookbinding. The impressive Bibles of the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation and finest bibliophile selections from the Renaissance onwards are on show. A splendour that can be found in books by popes and kings, queens and princes of France. In addition, books from the 19th century and modern and contemporary books can be seen.
The Geneva scholar Marc-Auguste Pictet (1752-1825) delivered many courses to Academy students for over 40 years. He also gave public courses for adults which were open to women. Pictet built up an extensive cabinet of demonstration instruments purchased from the best European makers. These later became one of the founding collections of the Academy Museum (Musée académique) and of the History of Science Museu (Musée d’histoire des sciences). This collection is at the heart of The exhibition. Replicas of the instruments and interactive displays inspired by the great classical demonstrations of physics, give an opportunity to test and learn about the phenomena being presented.