Switzerland, Lucerne: Visit in the Largest European House of Traffic - VIDEO

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For those who perceive a visit in a museum as a sterile experience should alter their meaning in the Swiss town of Lucerne. The Museum of Traffic surpasses your imagination and it is literally opened during the whole year. See that, 116 employees and 71 volunteers make sure it operates, as it should. Any Czech museum could only dream about so numerous staff. And another attraction that will surprise you – more than three quarter million of visitors make the technical museum in Lucern the most visited museum in the whole country.

The house of traffic – kids’

Verkehrshaus, a house of traffic in English, offers a perfect overview of history of traffic, actually all kinds of it – air, railroad, marine, or cable and space. The museum has high quality exhibitions that are in four different world languages. The Swiss museum of traffic is a place of interaction, education, searching and fun. Particularly for children it is a heaven.

Kids can experience how it is to be a train driver and they will fast learn how hard it is to manage to bring such a machine to halt, in a new studio they can try to be a TV or radio presenter, or they also can test their skills in “real” road traffic. Interesting experience is also a free fall simulator, and children can have a good romp when exploring train undercarriages or working as a crane operator who has to transship containers in a port.

Thanks to various programs and exhibitions the House of Traffic connect the past with the present and it also offers some visions of the future. On 20 thousand square meters there is more than 3 thousand exhibits. IMAX with the largest screen in Switzerland is a part of the museum as well as a planetarium and Hans Erni’s Arts Museum.

Smart management and well-deserved applaus

However, things were not always the way they are now and the Lucerne museum wasn’t always glorious. A big step towards tourists from all-around the world made the management only in 2009 when the museum celebrated its 50th anniversary. In that occasion many buildings were renovated and many permanent exhibitions were renewed. FutureCom, a building with an improvised medial center, was opened already in 2009 as well as two new restaurants, a museum shop and other facilities. In 2009 a new exhibition in the Road Transport Hall was opened, on a space of 2 thousand square meters there is an interactive auto show and other interesting attraction. This will be attractive particularly to boys who love cars   

The Lucerne museum is exceptional not only for its vast exhibitions but also for its financing system. It is, as the only one, not dependent on state financing since it finances its operation but itself or with a help of sponsors. The management of the museum boasts with transparent accounting, monthly reports on state of finances, and control of all project via medium- and long-term planning

Text/photo/video: Klára Svobodová