SWISS
PAPER & PRINTING
MUSEUM - BASEL
Schweizerisches Papiermuseum
With the IPad, the
Kindle and the computer, perhaps ink on paper will go the way of the
Dodo Bird, or New Coke. Yet, there’s something
about the smell of fresh ink on paper fresh out of the press… When
I was 7 years old I remember climbing on some rubble of a demolished
building and finding boxes of small lead pieces with letters on the end
of them. The metal type from a linotype machine. I’d seen one stuck
in the back of an old newspaper office. Now, when I go to the stationary
store for a unique paper or even read a magazine, I think of those little
lead pieces.
The Basel
Swiss Museum for Paper and Printing is a chance for a look and to touch
the ancient nearly forgotten arts of paper making and
the history of printing. There are lots of museums around with old printing
equipment or even ancient books of illustrated manuscripts, but this
is a living museum, with the making of real paper of hand-made rag bond
and setting of type demonstrated before your eyes. Here, where history
can be touched and felt, visitors have the chance to make their own hand
made paper and learn to typeset the way of Gutenberg, with lines of type
melted and set in the brace, the wheel turned to indent the ink deep
into the fibers.
Located in an historically
authentic paper mill from the Middle Ages complete with a working water
wheel which turns the medieval Galician
mill, which first produced paper in 1453, the museum journey begins with
the workshop for the production of paper as it was manufactured during
the 18th Century. Rags from old cloth soaked and stamped into pulp, and
hand rolled into sheets. But printing is more than paper.
The museum’s
living and working exhibits continue on through the ages of printing
from the hand press to modern machine printing and off-set. Exhibits
of the source of ink color dies and historic manuscripts. Beyond the
demonstrations of printing arts by the craftsmen, hands-on workshops
especially for kids and students allow the opportunity to learn the art
of hand lettering and to create original art paper designs. Named a European
Museum of the Year when it opened in 1993, the Swiss Paper Museum in
Basel is well worth a visit in this town of museums. Nearby are the Basel
Art Museum and the Cartoon Museum.
The
Basle Paper and Printing Museum (Basler Papiermühle, Schweizerischen
Museum für Papier, Schrift und Druck) is open Tuesday to Sunday
2pm to 5pm. Adult admission
is 12 CHF, Students and Seniors 10 and children
6-16 8 CHF, with a Family Ticket available for 26 CHF. The museum is
at Sankt-Alban-Tal 35/37 near the Rhine River, a five minute walk from
the "Kunstmuseum" stop of Tram Number 2. Or follow the Rhine
Promenade (St Alban Rheinweg) from the Wettstein Bridge to signs for
the Schweizerisches Papiermuseum. Or from the opposite side of the Rhine
and the Tingueley Museum, take a trip on one of the hand-guided ferry
boats from the Schaffhauser Rheinwegn (see Basler
Rhine Ferries).
Souvenirs from travels abroad often consist of mass produced touristy gee-gaws grabbed from the airport gift shop on the way to a flight or souvenir kiosks. From the Swiss Paper Museum in Basel, you can purchase your own unique hand made rag paper to take home and write your friends of your journeys. Put a stamp on it and mail it. Mail? Huh, what’s that? © Bargain Travel Europe
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Web Info
Schweizerisches
Papier Museum
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SEE
ALSO:
PUPPENHAUS - DOLLS HOUSE MUSEUM
ST BERNARD DOG MUSEUM - MARTIGNY
SWISS
MUSEUM OF TRANSPORTATION - LUCERNE
