Open Air Museum Ballenberg

2 December 2022

The open-air museum has a collection of over 110 rural houses and farm buildings relocated from all over Switzerland. To furnish the buildings, the museum collects objects from rural life and farming from the time before agriculture began.

These items and related secondary information of all kinds relate to earlier ways of living, social structures and economic activities in the farming community, as well as crafts and commerce.

The site shows magnificent farmhouses, humble workers’ quarters, alpine huts and stalls, barns, store-houses, wash-houses and drying ovens that provide architectural and socio-historical testimony to the everyday life and rural culture of the past. Gardens, fields, pastures and meadows, set up according to historical models, surround the farmsteads and houses.

In the buildings, some craftspeople work with traditional tools, while various theme exhibits give insight into scenes of rural former days.

Moreover, about 250 farm animals, representing the whole gamut of native domestic animals, provide lively scenes. However, to get a good impression of typical Swiss houses, one could visit the nearby village of Ballenberg before or after visiting the museum.

(Further information: www.ballenberg.ch).