Dorfmuseum Mettlen

Small village museum in Mettlen with a village school, traditional trades, home embroidery and a mom-and-pop store from around 1900; visits by arrangement.

Opening hours unknown

Website Directions

About the museum

The Ortsmuseum Mettlen opened in 1991 in connection with the celebrations marking 700 years of the Swiss Confederation. It is located in the basement of the Bamix AG company building at Hauptstrasse 21, at the far left end of the building.

The museum offers an insight into village life and crafts in a typical Thurgau village around 1900. The first room shows a village school with school furniture, pictures, documents and teaching materials. The second room presents trades such as blacksmith, locksmith, bricklayer, cooper, joiner, wheelwright, saddler, shoemaker and painter, with their tools. Around 1900 there were more than twenty home embroidery businesses in Mettlen, and the dependence on the textile industry was great; the few surviving examples of this trade are also on display. In addition there are agriculture and forestry, electricity, a mom-and-pop store and photographs of village life, for example of the open-air theater performances behind the Biedermeier-style schoolhouse.

The objects were gathered over decades by the collector Oskar Stucki, who looked after the museum until 2004. His brother Kurt Stucki then took over the collection, including the inventory, runs the museum in the spirit of the founder and continually expands it.

Highlights

Village school with school furniture, documents and teaching materials
Trades such as blacksmith, cooper and wheelwright, with their tools
Traces of home embroidery in Mettlen
Mom-and-pop store, agriculture and forestry, and Elektra (electricity)
Photographs of village life and the open-air theater performances