New Audemars Piguet Museum in Vallée du Joux

Known as le Nouveau Musée Audemars Piguet, this was originally scheduled to open in April 2020 and the latest I have heard is that this has been delayed until some time in June. But we'll see about that. The museum is located in Le Brassus in the Lac de Joux area, shown by the red arrow on the attached map (c/o Swisstopo). Here are a few links for anybody interested in the watchmaking industry in Switzerland. www.dezeen.com/2020/04/22/big-musee-atelier-audemars-piguet-in-the-swiss-mountains/? and archello.com/project/musee-atelier-audemars-piguet and lastly, a set of images about the project by the Danish architectural firm BIG: big.dk/#projects-apm The second attachment is an aerial image (c/o Google) of the immediate area with the construction site standing out in a pale yellow.

On the map, notice how close the Lac de Joux is to the French border. I have driven along the roads in this area at the end of the work day, and can report that there are streams of workers in the watch-making industry who headed back to where they live in France. Of course, this is not unique to this area, as we see the same daily migration of workers in areas, especially Geneva, but to a lesser extent in many places along the Swiss border with France, Germany, and Italy.

Lastly, for those who are planning a visit to Switzerland at some point in the future (which I assume is all of you visiting this forum), here is a link to La Vallée du Joux tourism website: www.myvalleedejoux.ch/en/

Hi Peterli,

thank you for this information, I am sure it will be a great museum, as usually the Swiss museums are. I've checked the pictures about the project, it will be a marvelous building, I like it a lot. Do you like it too? I added it to my bucket list.

I hope this new museum will be also free with Swiss Travel Pass.

Thanks, Ildiko

It looks very interesting and I plan to visit next time I am in that area, although I have no idea when that will be. I think it would be nice to visit in the Winter with snow all around. Some people like to dump on Bjarke Ingels, but I quite like a good number of his projects. To get to le Musée, unless you are arriving by automobile, I imagine a PostAuto must go pretty close by. I just checked their website and it looks like there are multiple stops in Le Brassus, one called Le Brassus, Les Horlogers. The train station (la Gare) is a little over a kilometre away from le Musée, and trains arrive here via Vallorbe (I haven't checked the timetables but I suspect one can transfer at the Le Day stop to catch the train down from Lausanne, and also when coming up from Lausanne). Maybe one of the train experts on this forum can tell us. I used to be very good at getting around using the old horaire officiel. It was pretty compact and I would keep the most recent version in my sac à dos (rucksack) but now I do 99% of my moving around by automobile.

That is an interesting point you raise about the STP. I guess one way to find out would be to contact Audemars Piguet directly. There is a guest card called the ValPass and I see that one of its benefits is a 50% reduction for entry to the Espace Horloger, but this is another place in nearby Le Sentier (probably also worth a visit).

Na jó, szia !

I have also personal reason why I was wondering about the Swiss Travel Pass: we have the annual Swiss Museum Pass, and they give the same discount and free entries on museums as the Swiss Travel Pass. :)

Hello Ildiko,

That Swiss Museum Pass is amazing. I know it overlaps with the STP but if one is not traveling by train it would be an amazing deal. I downloaded the pdf of places that are included, the one that separates them by canton. I see plenty of places I'd never even heard about. Thanks for the tip.