Since June 2022, the two museums Photo Elysée and mudac share a new building in Lausanne's Platforme 10 museum district. Photo Elysée was founded in 1985 by Charles-Henri Favrod as Switzerland's first museum dedicated solely to photography. It was initially called Musée de l’Elysée. Its collection contains more than 100000 photographs from the 19th and 20th century, among them works by Mario Giacomelli and Gabriel Lippmann. The mudac, the "musée cantonal de design et d'arts appliqués contemporains" was founded in 2000 and has a collection of contemporary glass art, jewelry, graphic arts and ceramics. It also regularly organises temporary exhibitions.
Construction site visit
Between June 18 and June 20, 2021, Plateforme 10 organised visits of the construction site of the future home of Photo Elysée and mudac. The building was designed by the Portuguese architecture firm Aires Mateus.
The mudac will be located on the upper floor of the building, which seems to float above the common entrance hall on the ground floor and the Musée de l'Elysée on the lower floor.
Discovery Weekend
On November 6th and 7th, 2021, on the occasion of the official key handover ceremony, Plateforme 10 organised a discovery weekend. Swiss artist Christian Marclay had installed a special exhibition, called "Déballage", across the whole building, using images from both museum's archives.
Inaugural weekend
The inaugural weekend was on June 18 and 19, 2022. All three museums of Platforme 10 presented a multidisciplinary exhibition "Train Zug Treno Tren", each museums approaching the railway theme in a different way. What better way to inaugurate the new museum district just a few steps from Lausanne's railway station ?
