Swiss National Museum, Inner courtyard

Welcome to this walk which will take you from the Swiss National Museum to the Museum für Gestaltung. We’d like to show you a few historic places connected with the two museums and with the path between them.
We are starting in the interior courtyard of the National Museum, and we are not going to talk about the modern 21st century extension, but the old, 19th century, part of the museum. It was designed by Gustav Gull, the Zurich city architect, who based his ideas for the National Museum on late Gothic and Renaissance buildings, which was typical of that time. The National Museum was completed in 1898 and ceremonially inaugurated. Construction work had been preceded by a competition between several Swiss towns which had put themselves forward as the site for a National Museum.
The imposing tower is actually a copy of Baden’s city tower. As an example of Late Gothic it was an ideal source of inspiration for Gull. To the left of it, between the tower and the new building – and behind the tower as well – are the wings of the former Kunstgewerbeschule and of the Gewerbemuseum. Where these moved to we’ll show you at the end of this walk.