Description
Ariana Museum
Continuing down the Avenue de la Paix, you find yourself in the haven of greenery which surrounds the Ariana Museum. When the estate was the property of Gustave Revilliod (1817-1890) it extended right down to the lake. He bequeathed the land, together with the Ariana Museum, to the City of Geneva. In his will, he stipulated that the grounds should become a public park. With the construction of the headquarters of the League of Nations (now the Palais des Nations) and subsequent urban redevelopments, this requirement had to be waived. The main entrance of the Ariana Museum was moved from the lake to the Jura side and a large area of land was ceded to the League of Nations. Gustave Revilliod, a wealthy scholar, art lover and eminent collector, built the Ariana Museum between 1877 and 1887 to house his collections and to provide access to them for a wider public. He named his museum Ariana in memory of his mother, Ariane, née De la Rive. For its construction, he commissioned a young, inexperienced architect, Émile Grobéty, who struggled to complete the task. Jacques Élysée Goss, already well-known, notably for Geneva’s Grand Théâtre (1875- 1879) and the Hôtel National (1875-1876, now the Palais Wilson), took over, enabling the Ariana Museum to open in 1884. The building, eclectic in style with its dominant neoclassical and neo-baroque features, is a free reinterpretation of Italian palatial architecture. Its main elliptical hall is also exceptional. The interior decoration follows a complex allegorical schema which aims to assimilate the construction to Parnassus and to its founder, Apollo. The Ariana Museum was the second purpose-built museum in Geneva, after the Rath Museum, constructed in 1826. At the time – proof of its prestige – it was top of the list of places to visit in Geneva ! The Ariana Museum, the Swiss Museum of Ceramics and Glass, is the only one of its kind today in Switzerland and one of the most important in Europe in its field. With over 25,000 objects, its collections document seven centuries of creation in ceramics and glass in Switzerland and throughout the world. Permanent displays and temporary exhibitions illustrate the history of the fire arts from medieval times to the present day. Objects are displayed in an aesthetic and didactic approach that underlines the technical, historical and artistic contexts of their creation. Particular emphasis is placed on the constant interaction that links the history of Western ceramics with the Near and Far-East.
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