The Swiss National Museum

The Landesmuseum was built in 1898 as a deliberate fantasy of a Swiss castle, turrets and courtyards and towers piled up behind the main station, and its job has always been to explain the country to itself. The permanent floors run from prehistoric lake dwellings through the Reformation, the guild towns and nineteenth-century industry, with room after room of arms and armour, painted furniture, church carving and coins. The 2016 extension by Christ and Gantenbein is the opposite in mood, a folded concrete wing hooked onto the old building, holding the changing exhibitions. Panels include English, and the archaeology and Gothic rooms are the strongest part of the whole thing.

What you actually see

• The archaeology floor - lake dwelling finds, Bronze Age metalwork and Roman material.
• The armoury - halls of armour, halberds and painted shields.
• The Gothic rooms - altarpieces and carved saints taken from country churches.
• The 2016 wing - a folded concrete extension holding the temporary exhibitions.

When to go

Closed on Monday, open late one evening in the week, and busiest on wet weekend afternoons when the whole city looks for an indoor plan. Ninety minutes covers the highlights and half a day covers the lot. School groups fill the archaeology floor on weekday mornings in term time, so come after lunch if you want it quiet.

Honest expectations

It is a big building with an old-fashioned density of objects, and the middle floors can feel like case after case with no line running through them. Galleries close for rebuilding with little notice. The castle exterior promises a fortress and delivers a museum designed in the 1890s, which disappoints anyone who arrived expecting something genuinely medieval.

Nearby

Platzspitz park lies behind it where the Sihl meets the Limmat, and the station is across the road.