Our history

The MUZOO site was inaugurated on December 17 and 18.

Opening of a new enclosure for grey otters.

Since February 2019, Dr. Nicolas Margraf has been MHNC’s curator and head of the Zoological Institutions museum sector, while Yasmine Ponnampalam is responsible for the zoological sector.

On November 27, 2018, the General Council unanimously adopted a credit request report to renovate the Ancien-Stand building and establish the Natural History Museum there under the name Project IZoo-18.

Xavier Huther becomes manager. A new project was launched to renovate the Ancien-Stand building to house the museum and develop the BPC.

Dr. Arnaud Maeder succeeds Marcel S. Jacquat. Jacquat.

Several projects were studied, but none came to fruition. In preparation for its move, the museum has been closed to the public since July 2014.

The Communal Council proposes that the curator of the MHNC study the possibility of moving the museum to the Ancien Stand.

The Zoo, Vivarium and MHNC join forces to form the Institutions Zoologiques (IZ). The commission is dissolved.

The animal park/zoo celebrates its 100th anniversary.

Museum management is entrusted to Marcel S. Jacquat, a teacher of natural sciences at the secondary school and occasional collaborator with the museum for several years.

After much debate, the vivarium was communalized and housed on the Bois du Petit-Château site, with the construction of 5 pavilions.

The animal park becomes a zoological park with the introduction of numerous species. The herd will eventually comprise almost 600 animals. The aim of the park is to introduce visitors to animals from the region’s present and extinct fauna.

Complete renovation of the museum in the Hôtel des Postes, creation of new dioramas.

The museum moves to a new wing in the Hôtel des Postes building.

V. Aellen is appointed director of Geneva’s Museum of Natural History, Willy Lanz takes over at the MHNC.

Philippe Bourquin appointed head of the museum. Sadly, he died two months later. He is succeeded by Villy Aellen.

Dissolution of the Société d’embellissement, replaced by a “Commission d’embellissement et d’entretien du Bois du Petit-Château”.

With a view to expanding the park, it is planned to move it to Gallet Park. For lack of funding, the project was abandoned.

For many years, the museum had lacked premises. When Dr Monard returned from his African expedition to Angola, the problem became urgent. The commune rents a large space from the PTT on the second floor of the main post office. The museum ceases to be a school museum and becomes a public museum.
The town then proposed to Dr. Monard that the museum be moved to the Ancien-Stand. The latter refused, arguing that having set up the museum in the Hôtel des Postes, he didn’t want to start again elsewhere. Albert Monard was curator of the MHNC from 1920 to 1952.

The curator is gymnasium teacher Edouard Stauffer. In 1918, the museum set up a separate committee.

The park was donated to the commune. The commune is responsible for maintenance. The public park then became a wildlife park, with a gradual increase in the number of animals, reaching around a hundred (birds, farmyard animals and a few deer) in 1940.

The Société d’embellissement buys the Bois du Petit-Château land from the Société de tir les Armes-Réunies, with a view to turning it into a public park. She entrusted the design and execution plans to gardener and landscape architect Charles Mattern.

The collections are broken down by type. Birth of a genuine Natural History Museum, still attached to the school. First credit granted by the commune. Édouard Stébler was curator until 1914.

The collections are transferred to three rooms in the Collège industriel (rue du Progrès 33, now the Bibliothèque).

The museum moves to rue du Collège 9.

Draft of a museum in a room at the Vieux-Collège (rue du Collège 6), bringing together various collections and documents (history, fine arts and natural sciences) under the aegis of the Chamber of Education. Pharmacist Célestin Nicolet was its first curator.