Museum of Mechanical Musical Instruments - self-playing wonders

About this place

The Museum of Mechanical Musical Instruments Seewen SO has been delighting a steadily growing fan base for years. It lies about 20 km south of Basel and is one of the popular attractions in north-west Switzerland. The «resounding museum» owes its existence to the passionate collecting work of Dr h.c. Heinrich Weiss, who spent decades lovingly and painstakingly bringing together a comprehensive collection of Swiss music boxes and disc-playing boxes, mechanical musical instruments, musical clocks, figure automata, phonographs and gramophones into what is now a world-famous collection. In 1979, he turned this collection into a museum and opened it to the public. And in 1990, he donated his entire collection, the museum building and the associated grounds to the Swiss Confederation. Since then, the Museum of Mechanical Musical Instruments Seewen SO has been a federal museum. Organisationally, it now belongs to the Federal Office of Culture (FOC).

Location