Kunstmuseum Bern

The Museum of Fine Arts Bern dates back to 1879 and is the oldest art museum in Switzerland with a permanent collection.  It has national artworks spanning eight centuries, and modern pieces including Kandinsky, Pablo Picasso, Ferdinand Hodler and Meret Oppenheim. More than 3,000 paintings and sculptures as well as drawings, prints, photographs, videos and films are exhibited or stored in the museum. And for Paul Klee fans, Kunstmuseum Bern has the world's largest collection of his works.

User-friendliness
Generally it's easy to find information for visitors of all kinds, be it teachers, parents with children, tourists, press, etc. Under "Visitor Information" we are informed of opening hours, admission fees and contact possibilities. Besides this, the museum can boast of having a Café-Bar, on-site shop, webshop and cinema. The cinema is housed on the premises, but is otherwise privately run offering a "varied and cinematically demanding programme" - at times linking to current exhibitions, but otherwise films complying with high standards. One gets the impression that the museum doesn't want to become one of these museums with blockbuster exhibitions getting massive attention and busloads of visitors, but prefer to attract more dedicated visitors through quality exhibitions. Many will certainly appreciate this approach.

There is no search engine or print link, but the website is trilingual: German, French and English. Unfortunately the language isn't as correct as could be expected on a major museum website. On the opening page the museum programme for the first half of 2007 can be downloaded. Programme is spelled "programm" with bold lettering. A decision should be made to either stick to British English: programme, or American English: program.

Regarding the opening page, I don't understand the choices that have been made regarding which items to promote. The newest overview of upcoming exhibitions and events "Agenda" (April - June 07) is placed under the previous overview (January - March 07). Why not the newest first? And why advertise for the exhibition "Six feet under" in Dresden that first opens in September? The most prominent position is given to a "Meret Oppenheim" exhibition that is on show in Oslo at the moment. Even though she is a Swiss surrealist artist and photographer represented at the museum, I would have made other dispositions regarding what to promote.

Navigation
The navigation is simple and straightforward. There are many levels, but we always begin with the basics at the top level and can find more detailed information if needed. "The site is under construction" is a sentence that one meets quite a few places, for instance under "board", "areas", and most of the collections. A professional website such as this one should hide those pages that are under construction.

The museum is well aware of its fundamental purpose: to attract visitors to Bern Kunstmuseum's exhibitions. Therefore the feature with a list of current and upcoming exhibitions that can be found on the right side of each website page at all times is an excellent idea. Kunstmuseum Bern focuses on its mission.

Updating
There are quite a few places where past events still are posted, for instance "Education & Events" has a calendar of upcoming events, where all four events have taken place.

Content
The content is generally fine, but I would like some subtitles to make reading easier and perhaps more general information giving an overview rather than the many details.

Aesthetics
Besides the front page, which I find a bit messy, the website has a subdued and consistent design using different colours and top picture for each of the nine areas. So my piece of advice is to fix up the front page, so that it is just as appetizing as all the others.

Creativity
This website caters for those that already are interested in art - and their children. The site is informative, rather than creative.

All in all it wouldn't require much effort to make the overall impression of the website much better. This is a museum with great pieces of art that I would love to visit; just the still life paintings from mid-17th century of fish, meat and vegetables are worth a trip. 

Related Articles
What's in a good "culture" website?  Criterion such as navigation, content, up-dates, etc.
Comparison of websites Kunstmuseum in Bern and Kunstmuseum Bonn, comparison

Related Information
Kunstmuseum Bern, Kunstmuseumbern.ch