Tell me where you live and I will tell you who you are! Décors. Masterpieces from the Collections, the new permanent exhibition at the Swiss National Museum – Château de Prangins, invites visitors to explore interiors that illustrate lifestyles, tastes and occupations in French-speaking Switzerland, from the Age of Enlightenment to the 20^th century. This fascinating, seven-part experience opens its doors on 27 August 2023. The vernissage will take place on Saturday 26 August, as of 18:30.

“When you look at an interior, you understand the lives of the people who inhabited it”, explains Helen Bieri Thomson, director of the museum and exhibition curator. “Interiors are part of the Swiss National Museum’s DNA: it has been collecting them since it was set up in 1898, and they reflect various identities and realities of our country.” The story of that mission is retold in the film Documenting the Nation, which is screened at the end of the exhibition.

“This year, we celebrate the 25^th birthday of the Swiss National Museum’s base in French-speaking Switzerland”, Helen Bieri Thomson reminds us. “So we wanted to turn the spotlight on decors from the region and showcase objects that are exceptional or have surprising stories to tell.”

The exhibition begins by immersing visitors in an eclectic melting pot of Swiss design, with everything from a futurist lamp by Mario Botta to an escabelle chair symbolising Swiss handcrafted furniture.

It continues with an ensemble almost without parallel anywhere in Europe: a private theatre set dating from 1777 originally installed at Château d’Hauteville. An immersive multimedia experience enables visitors to attend a performance of an 18^th century play, Le médecin suisse allemand, by actors from the Théâtre de Carouge.

The next space, “Luxury on a farm”, presents a wallpaper grand enough for the Tuileries Palace depicting Ovid’s Metamorphoses. This décor, which, remarkably, adorned the walls of a peasant house in the Bernese Jura from the 1790s onwards, is the perfect setting in which to hear Ovid’s tales.

The next room signals a change of mood: “Investigating interiors” focuses on photographs taken by the criminologist Rodolphe Archibald Reiss and his successors between 1900 and 1930. These crime scenes are rare testimonies to the living conditions of the underprivileged classes in the canton of Vaud during the early 20^th century.

Moving on to the “Middle-class living room”, visitors can discover furniture made in Yverdon in the 19^th century by an innovative joiner whose techniques prefigure serial production. Here, they can assemble and take apart a chair, and touch items made from carved, inlaid or turned wood.

The exhibition culminates in a monumental work unique in Switzerland: a room constructed from exotic wood complete with boiseries, wall lights and paintwork heralding the arrival of Art Deco. Intended as an office, it was designed by the architect Alphonse Laverrière and built in 1922 for the First National Exhibition of Applied Art.

On show from 27 August at Château de Prangins. Vernissage open to the public on Saturday 26 August at 18:30, admission free.