Heritage Museums: Stars Coming Alive

Richard Wagner had already established more than a passing acquaintanceship with Lucerne and its surroundings before he took up residence in the Tribschen villa, having visited the town on four occasions previously. Wagner’s fifth and final stay in Lucerne lasted from 5th April 1866 to 22nd April 1872. During a boat trip on the Lake of Lucerne with Cosima von Bülow, the daughter of Franz Liszt, he discovered the slightly neglected, but magnificent mansion-house then owned by the patr...

The Walt Whitman Birthplace State Historic Site and Interpretive Center is the native home of the famous poet Walt Whitman, widely recognized as America’s Greatest Poet. Whitman was born here in 1819 in a farmhouse built by his father circa 1810. In Whitman’s time, the Birthplace homestead was approximately a 20-acre farm, but despite Whitman’s national prominence, the property was sold off until only approximately two acres were left by 1940. The site in West Hills faced the ...

Celebrating the Chopin Year 2010 is a time of many important cultural events. One of the key investments is the opening of a new museum exhibition of Fryderyk Chopin. Works on rebuilding the old premises of the museum have been carried out since 2005. The institution is dedicated to collecting memorabilia of Fryderyk Chopin, for many years located in the historic Ostrogski Palace at 1, Okólnik Street in Warsaw. Its redevelopment has completely changed the nature of the previous Museum. ...

“I assure you that this is a magnificent place – and the best place in the world for my profession,” wrote Mozart to his father about his house in Vienna, and the comment proved to be correct. In the ten years he lived here he composed many of his most important works and matured to become the artist whom we know and appreciate today. He also earned a lot of money and was able to enjoy an extravagant lifestyle – as is impressively demonstrated by the only surviving apartm...

The Cabinet War Rooms, the place of today’s Churchill Museum, were established in their subterranean location in 1938-39, initially to house military planners and their support staff but then, after several changes of mind, to house the War Cabinet. Housed in a roughly converted storage basement at the back of Whitehall, underneath one of the major edifices that grace the area – and would seem to be an easy target for aerial bombing! – they provided sheltered working and living...