Exhibitions

An arts district, a square before the city railway station… Plateforme 10 has been built on the site of a former Swiss railroad workshop and yard. It lies at the heart of the historic transformation of Lausanne’s main station. For the inauguration of this new neighborhood, the 3 museums making up Plateforme 10 – MCBA, mudac, and Photo Elysée – have decided to pay homage to the site’s railroading past with 3 exceptional shows organized around the common theme laid out by the overall title, TRAIN ZUG TRENO TREN. Simply “train” in Switzerland’s four official languages, the title suggests a whole program that clearly reflects Switzerland’s collective imagination.

TRAIN ZUG TRENO TREN

An arts district, a square before the city railway station… Plateforme 10 has been built on the site of a former Swiss railroad workshop and yard. It lies at the heart of the historic transformation of Lausanne’s main station. For the inauguration of this new neighborhood, the 3 museums making up Plateforme 10 – MCBA, mudac, and Photo Elysée – have decided to pay homage to the site’s railroading past with 3 exceptional shows organized around the common theme laid out by the overall title, TRAIN ZUG TRENO TREN. Simply “train” in Switzerland’s four official languages, the title suggests a whole program that clearly reflects Switzerland’s collective imagination.

Admissions and tickets

1 theme, 3 exhibitions

Alluding to railroad imagery and the important role it has played throughout the history of art and art making since the Industrial Revolution, the exhibition TRAIN ZUG TRENO TREN is the result of an intense cross-disciplinary collaboration of the 3 museums of Plateforme 10.

The show brings together and sets in dialogue a number of masterpieces and great classics by a range of artists, from Hopper to de Chirico, and includes pieces from all the fields of contemporary creativity, from design and photography to advertising. The three individual shows making up TRAIN ZUG TRENO TREN are a stunning piece of work and the very heart of the arts district and its inaugural program.

MCBA

TRAIN ZUG TRENO TREN
Voyages imaginaires

Voyages imaginaires (Imaginary Journeys) boasts over 60 masterpieces by a range of artists, from Giorgio de Chirico and Edward Hopper to Paul Delvaux and Leonor Fini. The show invites visitors to discover how the image of the railroad train, that symbol of the Industrial Revolution par excellence, came to crystallize fascinating and essential reflections on artistic representation of a world that seemed to have been suddenly swept up in an acceleration without limits.


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mudac

TRAIN ZUG TRENO TREN
Let’s meet at the station

Alluding to railroad imagery and the important role it has played throughout the history of art and art making since the Industrial Revolution, the exhibition TRAIN ZUG TRENO TREN is the result of an intense cross-disciplinary collaboration of the 3 museums of Plateforme 10. The show brings together and sets in dialogue a number of masterpieces and great classics by a range of artists, from Hopper to de Chirico, and includes pieces from all the fields of contemporary creativity, from design and photography to advertising. The three individual shows making up TRAIN ZUG TRENO TREN are a stunning piece of work and the very heart of the arts district and its inaugural program.

 

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Photo Elysée

TRAIN ZUG TRENO TREN
Crossing lines

Destins croisés (Crossing Lines) interweaves the visions, dreamlands, and spirit of conquest that have accompanied railroading from the outset. Learning to use and understand trains, the kinds of sociability that are specific to stations and railcars, the faces of railroad workers, the alternative practices of today – Destins croisés, a show teeming with discoveries to be made, aims to develop new approaches to the world of railroads.


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Exhibitions

Gen Z

19.09.2025 – 01.02.2026

Twenty years after opening its doors to emerging photographers with the landmark exhibition reGeneration: 50 Photographers of Tomorrow, Photo Elysée reaffirms its commitment to supporting young talent with Gen Z: Shaping a New Gaze.

This new exhibition brings together the work of 66 international artists, primarily from Generation Z – broadly defined as those born between the mid-1990s and 2010 – to explore the concerns of this generation.

L is for Look

19.09.2025 – 01.02.2026

Co-produced by the Institut pour la photographie in Lille and Photo Elysée, L is for Look explores children’s photo books, from their industrial boom in the 1930s to the present day. Although this type of publication remains marginal in the publishing landscape, it bears witness to the evolution of our perception of photography, the history of education, and the status of children in Western societies over more than a century.

Children’s photobooks have benefited from the emergence of new image-centered teaching methods. Photography is finding its way into all areas of children’s literature, from picture books to fiction, including works with educational, pedagogical, or creative aims. By renewing this publishing genre, it is also opening up to new and original forms, thanks to the collaboration of graphic designers, artists, illustrators, and authors.

Giulia Essyad. Prix Gustave Buchet

12.09.2025 – 11.01.2026

Inspired by the architecture of transitional spaces, Giulia Essyad transforms the MCBA’s Espace Projet gallery into a sensory and spiritual labyrinth. Recipient of the 9th Gustave Buchet Prize, the Lausanne-born artist explores the mechanisms of desire and commodification through an immersive installation that weaves together DIY technologies, digital imagery, and personal memories.

The Collection

Permanent presentation

« Come and see here what you won’t see elsewhere! » is the slogan for the permanent exhibition, laid out chronologically over two floors to showcase treasures from Vaud’s art collections, with some three hundred works dating from the eighteenth century to the present day.