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Museum Engiadinais, St. Moritz

The Museum Engiadinais consists of a collection of historic rooms and parlors and displays objects and building elements from the Engadin. It was built by the architect Nicolaus Hartmann jun. on behalf of the collector and brewer Riet Campell from Susch (1906). Throughout his life, Riet Campell collected culturally and historically valuable interiors from five centuries in order to save them from being sold off and make them accessible to the public. Nicolaus Hartmann jun. created a tailor-made building for these rooms. Riet Campell also collected the objects and building elements that were used to stage life in the parlors at the time.

The building corresponds exactly to the then (and now) idea of an ideal Engadine house. One of the oldest museums in Grisons is not an authentic, time-honored building into which a collection has been integrated. The collection is combined with buildings created especially for it to form a unique ensemble whose relevance is greater than the sum of the collection items.

splendur e sumbriva

Glüsch - vita da not
From pinewood to petroleum

As the sun sets, the day draws to a close. The light of the sun gives way to dancing points of light behind the windows of the houses. Since ancient times, people have felt the need to artificially illuminate the night.

From this summer, the Museum Engiadinais will be holding a special exhibition showing how the local population illuminated their homes at night until well into the 20th century.

Just like fire in the past, light in the rooms had to be tamed and cultivated in a centuries-long struggle. The development ranges from pine shavings, which burned out after a few minutes of flickering, to foul-smelling tallow candles or tallow candles, which produced a lot of soot and whose wick had to be cut back several times an hour, to a creative variety of oil lamps and the modern and luxuriously designed kerosene lamps. Long before the first electric lamps, there was an exciting relationship between humanity and artificial light, and the Museum Engiadinais will shed a new light on it.

Sonderausstellung Glüsch – vita da not, ©Stephan Schenk
Sonderausstellung Glüsch – vita da not, ©Stephan Schenk

Events

Guided tours

Public guided tour - Splendur e sumbriva
Special opening in the evening: Glüsch - vita da not