Olympic Museum: one of the most important in Switzerland

The Olympic Museum (Musée olympique) in Lausanne, Switzerland, houses permanent and temporary exhibits relating to sport and the Olympic movement. With more than 10,000 artifacts, the museum is the largest archive of Olympic Games memorabilia in the world and one of Lausanne’s prime tourist site draws attracting more than 250,000 visitors each year.

The Olympic Museum and the Olympic Park (sculpture garden between the museum and Lake Geneva) are located at Ouchy, south of Lausanne. The headquarters of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) are located at Vidy, to the west of Ouchy.

History

The Olympic Museum was founded on 23 June 1993 on the initiative of Juan Antonio Samaranch, who set out to establish a museum and an Olympic study centre in Lausanne. It is the second most visited museum in Switzerland.

The museum’s architects are Miguel Espinet for the interior, and Pedro Ramírez Vázquez and Jean-Pierre Cahen for the exterior. The building’s architectural style is one of classical modernism. Its simple, clean lines are as timeless as possible, yet numerous symbols evoke the spirit and origins of the Olympic Games.

It was awarded the European Museum of the Year Award in 1995 and is listed as a Swiss cultural asset of national importance.

It also received the AVICOM Claude-Nicole Hocquard Grand Prix at the FIAMP in 2014, in recognition of the excellence of a media production and its integration into a museum exhibition, for the audiovisual works ‘Inside the Race’ and ‘Opening Ceremony’.

Expositions

The museum features temporary and permanent exhibitions spread across three floors (the Olympic world, the Olympic Games and the Olympic spirit).

The permanent exhibitions focus on Pierre de Coubertin, the Summer and Winter Olympic Games, as well as stamp and coin collections linked to the International Olympic Committee (IOC).