Museum of Communication

Special stamps 100th Anniversary

To mark the centenary of the Museum of Communication in Bern, Swiss Post is issuing two special postage stamps, which use a novel technology. This anniversary also provides an opportunity to review the varied history of the Museum and to cast an eye over its current innovative program of exhibitions.

History of communication

The Museum of Communication is the only museum in Switzerland that is dedicated exclusively to communication and its history. In addition to temporary exhibitions with an original approach, like "Happy-The Promise of Advertising", "White on Red - United Colors of Switzerland" and "Electric Guitars -The Power and the Glory", the permanent exhibit entitled "The Communication Adventure" allows visitors to interact with the history of communication. Items relating to the Post, transport, tourism and philately, telecommunications and IT as well as radio and television constitute the museum's core collections, and a creative take on these themes makes them accessible to a broad public. How did this comprehensive collection come to be under one roof?

Postal Museum

A Swiss postal museum, modeled on the first Postal Museums in Berlin (opened in 1874) and Vienna (1889), is first mentioned in records in 1893. By 1901 concrete references can be found to an active collection, and the Swiss Postal Museum finally opened in the main Bollwerk post office in Bern on 22 June 1907. This museum began to run out of space in the early 1930s, and the search began for a suitable new location. The Postal Museum closed in 1933 and its collection was temporarily stored in the Natural History Museum in Bern until the Postal Museum could be reopened in the new Alpine Museum building at Helvetiaplatz in 1936.

PTT Museum

In 1949, with an eye to the centenary of electric communications in Switzerland, the PTT (Post, Telegraph and Telephone) Directorate General decided to supplement the Postal Museum with a collection on the history of telecommunications and to rename it the "Swiss PTT Museum".
The PTT Museum was housed in the Alpine Museum for another 40 years, but lack of space meant that philately was the only field for which special exhibitions could be staged. The museum attempted to raise its profile with guest exhibitions in the Museum of Transport in Lucerne and throughout Switzerland. Then, towards the end of the 1970s, the Alpine Museum terminated the PTT Museum's lease.
At the same time, plans were afoot to establish a cultural center in the Lower Kirchenfeld district of Bern. The PTT became involved in the project, and architect Andrea Roost and his team between 1987 and 1989 designed the new PTT Museum. It was officially opened on 22 June 1990, and its interactive permanent collection and rotating exhibitions quickly earned the PTT Museum a good reputation.

Postage stamps in detail

Issue: Switzerland, 27 April 2007
Design: Müller Lütolf, Bern
Printing: Lenticular printing by Graphics Ag, Aarau
Perforation: serpentine cut on four sides of the stamp
Stamp sizes: 50 x 30 mm

More information

Swiss National Bank