Maison de la Lumière

The Maison de la Lumière is devoted to two hundred years of photography as a cultural and human process. The starting point is 1826, when Nicéphore Niépce created the world’s first permanently preserved photograph. From there, the exhibition spans to the present day and shows how photography developed through the interplay of technology, society and individual imagination.

The focus is not on cameras or equipment, but on the people behind the images. Pioneers such as Nicéphore Niépce, Louis Daguerre, Nadar and George Eastman exemplify curiosity, setbacks, perseverance and the courage to break new ground. Their biographies reveal that photographic innovation is rarely a straight path.

A special emphasis is placed on the major turning points in the history of photography. This includes the digital revolution, which fundamentally transformed the image. Exclusively in Switzerland, the Maison de la Lumière presents the personally authorised original report by Steven Sasson, in which he describes how his invention of the digital camera came about at Kodak – and how it was initially met with scepticism internally.

The Maison de la Lumière is located in the photography studio of exhibiting photographer Simone Wälti and opens to the public as a museum every second Sunday. The exhibition is designed to be interactive: films, cards with historical facts, QR codes and a room featuring a camera obscura effect provide a sensory approach to the history of photography. It addresses a broad audience and can also be booked for guided tours, group visits and private events.

The exhibition invites visitors not only to look at photography, but to understand it as a living history – two hundred years between joy, failure and the spirit of invention.