7 Best Sights in Geneva, Switzerland

Andy Warhol, Cindy Sherman, Nan Goldin, Pipilotti Rist, Thomas Scheibitz, and Shirana Shahbazi are some of the pioneering Swiss and international artists who have presented work here since 1974. The center's annual exhibits include multimedia installations and performances that highlight emerging artists who examine the practice of art in a cultural context. Guided visits in English are available upon request.

Alfred Baur's lovingly preserved collection of Far Eastern art packs more than 10 centuries of Chinese ceramics and jade, Japanese smoking paraphernalia, prints, lacquerware, and sword fittings—some 9,000 objects in all—into a tranquil 19th-century town house on the edge of the Vieille Ville. Thematic temporary exhibits occupy the basement. English texts introduce each room.

Concrete floors and fluorescent lighting set the tone for this gritty collection of stark, mind-stretching, post-1960 art. Better known as MAMCO, the museum shares its former factory compound with separate centers for contemporary art and photography. The industrial surroundings help juxtapose aesthetic approaches; temporary exhibits add current artists to the mix.

Josef Mueller began acquiring fine primitive era art from Africa, Southeast Asia, and the Americas in 1907. Today his family's vast, inspired collection of sculpture, masks, shields, textiles, and ornaments spans six continents and seven millennia. A small selection is on view at any given time, displayed like jewels in warm, spotlighted vaults of scrubbed stone.

The Museum of Art and History, one of the largest museums in Switzerland, brings together archaeological, applied art and fine art collections. The 15th-century Miracle of the Fishes, in which Jesus paces the waters of Lac Léman, keeps things focused locally at this museum built in 1910. The collection includes Switzerland's largest concentration of Egyptian art, Escalade-era weapons, Alpine landscapes from both ends of the 19th century, and substantial modern art. There is often a fee for temporary exhibits.

Switzerland's original fine arts museum, inaugurated in 1826 and named for its late benefactor, Simon Rath, housed Geneva's growing collections of art and archaeology until they overflowed to the Musée d'Art et d'Histoire in 1910. Now the Rath hosts two major temporary exhibitions each year; they range in focus from archaeology to contemporary art.

In this breathtaking private collection you'll discover delicate gold watch cases, complicated watch innards, lifelike portrait miniatures, and softly lighted enameled fans, pens, pocketknives, snuffboxes, telescopes, and vanity pistols that shoot singing birds. Most of the objects displayed in this former watchmaking workshop are hundreds of years old; many were created in Geneva by Patek Philippe, one of the city's most venerable watchmaking companies. Meticulously restored workbenches, audiovisual displays, classical music, and a horological library complete the picture; the two-hour guided tour (in English at 2:30 on Saturday) puts it all in context. All signage is in English.