Swiss National Museum

Step off the train at Zurich's main station, walk a few paces north, and the noise of the platforms begins to fade. In front of you rises something that looks out of place beside the rail tracks. There are turrets, steep roofs, pale stone walls, and a tower with a pointed cap. It looks like a castle from a storybook, but this building was never a fortress. It was designed to hold a country's memory, and that is the place you are standing in front of now.

This is the Swiss National Museum, known locally in German as the Landesmuseum. It opened to the public in 1898. Its creation was not simple. In the late nineteenth century, several Swiss cities wanted to host a national museum, and Bern was among the strongest rivals. Zurich won the decision in the early 1890s. For a young federal state, with four languages and many regional traditions, the choice carried real weight. Where do you keep a shared history, when the country is a union of very different places?

The architect was Gustav Gull, a Zurich man. He did not design a single neutral hall. Instead, he gave the building many shapes and styles at once. Look at the facades and you will see echoes of late medieval and Renaissance buildings from different parts of Switzerland. Here is the surprise. The building itself was meant to be an exhibit. Its patchwork of towers, gables and courtyards was a picture of the country as a collection of regions, joined under one roof.

Walk into the inner courtyard if it is open. The city noise drops again. You hear footsteps on stone, perhaps a fountain, perhaps children's voices bouncing off the walls. The light here is softer, framed by the surrounding wings. Many visitors hurry straight to the galleries and miss this moment. Pause for a minute. From the courtyard, you can see how Gull's old building and the much newer extension meet each other.

That extension is the second chapter of this site. It opened in 2016, designed by the Basel architects Christ and Gantenbein. It uses a very different material — grey concrete, with rows of round windows cut into the surface. At first it looks severe next to the old turrets. But notice its angles. The new wing folds and steps, and its roof line follows the steep profile of the older roofs. The two buildings do not copy each other. They hold a conversation across more than a century.

Inside, the collection is the largest of its kind in Switzerland, focused on cultural history. That means everyday objects as well as treasures. You can find archaeological finds from the lakeside settlements of prehistoric people, medieval weapons, carved church furniture, gold work, clocks, toys and clothing. The idea is simple and powerful. Swiss history is not told only through kings and battles, because Switzerland had no kings. It is told through craftspeople, farmers, merchants and townspeople.

One of the most loved parts of the museum is its series of period rooms. These are complete interiors taken from old Swiss houses and buildings, then rebuilt inside the museum. Wood panelling, painted ceilings, tiled stoves and leaded glass windows were carried here and set up again. Standing inside one, you notice the smell of old timber and the low height of the doors. Notice how small and warm these rooms feel. In a cold mountain country, a large tiled stove was the heart of a family's winter.

Now look for the Hall of Arms, a high space filled with armour and weapons. Its walls carry a large painting by Ferdinand Hodler, one of Switzerland's most important painters. It shows Swiss soldiers retreating after the Battle of Marignano, a defeat in northern Italy in the early sixteenth century. When Hodler won the commission around 1900, his work caused a public dispute. His figures were bold, rough and modern. Many people expected a polished, heroic scene. Today the painting is often seen as a turning point in Swiss art.

There is another quiet surprise here. A national museum chose to show a defeat, not a victory. Marignano is often linked to the long Swiss tradition of staying out of the wars of the great European powers. So the painting is not only about loss. It also points to a choice the country made over the following centuries. Stand back from the wall and look at the faces of the soldiers. They are tired, not triumphant.

The museum is also part of a wider family. The Swiss National Museum group includes a château at Prangins, near Lake Geneva, and the Forum of Swiss History in Schwyz, in central Switzerland. Together they spread the national story across language regions. Here in Zurich, the building also hosts changing temporary exhibitions. These can cover anything from fashion to politics to design, so the experience can feel quite different from one visit to the next.

When you leave, walk around to the back of the museum. Behind it lies Platzspitz, a green park on the narrow point of land where two rivers meet, the Limmat and the Sihl. You can hear moving water, and trees shade the gravel paths. The park has a difficult recent past. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, it became the site of a large open drug scene, which drew attention from across Europe. The city closed it in the early 1990s. Today it is calm again, used by walkers and families.

That contrast is worth holding in your mind. A castle-like museum full of old treasures stands beside a park that carries a much more recent and painful memory. History here is not only behind glass. It is also in the streets and the riverbanks around you. The museum tells the long story of a country. The park beside it reminds you that this story is still being written, by ordinary people, right now.

As you walk away, turn back for one last look. Notice the pale towers rising above the station roofs, and the grey concrete wing beside them. Listen for the trains, the trams and the water of the two rivers. Old and new, stone and concrete, memory and daily life — they sit very close together on this small piece of Zurich. Take that picture with you as you head back into the city.