The Leventina District is part of the Canton of Ticino, the largely Italian-speaking region of Switzerland close to the border with Italy and crossed by the ancient pilgrimage route, the Via Francigena. In the Giornico village, an outstanding complex of historical buildings known as Casa Stanga – a former house and inn with beautiful frescoes dating back to the late 16th century – hosts the Museo di Leventina, an ethnographic museum whose collections spans popular religions, sacred art, home economics and craftsmanship.

Documents and photographs, as well as a rich collection of objects and artworks tell the many stories of the community who lived, worked or crossed the region over time. The exhibition is enriched by multimedia tools enabling visitors to discover many different aspects of the local culture. It is also possible to join expert guided tours of the Museum and the Leventina District.

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The Museum of Contemporary Design and Applied Arts (MUDAC) first opened its doors in 2000. In 2022 it relocated to the Plateforme 10 space in the heart of Lausanne's arts and museum quarter. There, MUDAC stands alongside other museums such as Photo Elysée and Cantonal Museum of Fine Arts Lausanne in an urban cube-shaped building designed by Portuguese architects Francisco and Manuel Aires Mateus and engineer Rui Furtado.

Today, MUDAC is the only museum in French-speaking Switzerland that is dedicated strictly to design. It has approximately 1,500 square metres of exhibition area. It boasts more than 3,000 objects of narrative and industrial design divided into five areas: contemporary design, glass art, ceramics, jewellery and graphic art. The museum’s multi-disciplinary approach earned it international recognition, since it not only focuses on temporary exhibitions of craftsmanship but also offers its space to performing artists, photographers and musicians.

Mudac (Museum)

A dialogue between contemporary design and applied arts

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The Fondation Martin Bodmer is a private Swiss organisation that houses a collection of rare books and manuscripts covering literature, religion, history and science from all major civilisations since the dawn of writing. It is named after Martin Bodmer, the Swiss bibliophile and collector who bequeathed his important collection of 150,000 items from 80 different cultures to the foundation upon his death. Among the collection are first folios of plays by Shakespeare and Molière, first editions of the Gutenberg Bible and several rare copies of the Egyptian Book of the Dead.

The complete collection is housed in the library, while selected texts are displayed in the museum. The foundation is involved in craftsmanship through its expertise in conservation and restoration. This work, which began in the 1980s with the conservation of papyri, drawings and books, extends to the construction of conservation cases for manuscript collections, incunabula and other objects mounted for display in the foundation's museum.

The Fondation Martin Bodmer

Book restoration and conservation arts

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The Textile Museum (Textilmuseum) of St Gallen was founded in 1878. At the time, it was established with the purpose of cultivating good design aesthetics in the ever-developing textile industry in Switzerland. The exhibitions and collections are dedicated to the country’s long-standing textile tradition. Whilst the museum highlights all branches and regions of Swiss textile production, its main specialisation is on embroidery and lace. The unique collections narrate the rich history of textile production through the centuries.

The vast collection is composed of historical embroideries from the 14th century onwards, handmade lace, ethnological textiles, historical fabrics and costumes, needlework utensils, and contemporary textile art objects. The hand embroideries and fabric prints portray the development of the textile industry in Eastern Switzerland. Witness the fine craftsmanship, intricate details and changing tastes as the museum takes its visitors on a journey through textile design.

Textile Museum - St. Gallen, Switzerland

Fabrics, embroideries and lace from the great Swiss tradition

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The Baur Foundation, Museum of Far Eastern Art (Fondation Baur Musée des Arts D’Extreme-Orient) was founded in 1964. It houses a large collection of oriental objects in a 19th century townhouse located in the centre of Geneva. The artworks were brought together by well-known Swiss art collector, Alfred Baur (1865-1951) during his lifetime.The collection showcases fine examples of both Chinese and Japanese craftsmanship, from the 10th to the 19th century, with over 9000 art objects.

Visitors will discover Chinese imperial ceramics and jades, as well as Japanese prints, textiles, tea ceremony objects and lacquerware, among many other precious objects from Baur’s collection and from subsequent donations. The museum’s collection represents the largest of Far Eastern art open to the public in Switzerland. Temporary exhibitions are also held several times a year, often welcoming contemporary artists.

The Baur Foundation

A fine collection of Chinese and Japanese handicraft

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Your authorizations

Developed in partnership with Fondazione Cologni dei Mestieri d’Arte and made possible by the support of Cartier, Homo Faber in Città gives you a rare chance to visit over 70 artisan workshops. The project is developed in collaboration with Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Confartigianato Imprese Venezia, CNA Venezia, Consorzio Promovetro Murano, The Venice Glass Week and Venezia da Vivere.

Our Partners

Step inside the workshops and ateliers to learn the secrets of local master artisans and manufacturers

Try your hand at different crafts with an authentic experience

Marvel at examples of fine craftsmanship by doing our itineraries

This september, the second edition of Homo Faber in Città invites visitors to step off the beaten track and discover the artisanal addresses where Venetian craftspeople create objects of exquisite beauty. A rare opportunity to witness Venice’s master artisans and young talents demonstrating their crafts and presenting the tools, materials and skills involved in contemporary Venetian craftsmanship.

Enrich your experience beyond Homo Faber 2024: The Journey of Life

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Homo Faber Guide is an online portal dedicated to contemporary craftsmanship, showcasing artisans, ateliers, museums, galleries, shops and experiences. Create your user account for access to exclusive features on Homo Faber Guide: save your preferred pages, hear about hot topics first, leave recommendations for your favourite artisans and much more.

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Although the Michelangelo Foundation researches the talents for its projects autonomously, collaboration with our ambassadors is fundamental. Over 120 associations, schools and institutions allow us to map the continents for craftsmanship and to have partners in each country who share our vision and goals. In addition, we have asked well-known personalities in the craft, design and art world to be our ambassadors in the cities where they live, so that their recommendations can offer a unique insight into craftsmanship in the major cities of Europe and beyond.

Who are our ambassadors?

Download our free Homo Faber Guide app (iOS and Android) to discover artisans, museums, galleries, shops, and experiences by location. Search Homo Faber on the App store on your mobile device.

Find craftsmanship destinations on the go

Discover the addresses of esteemed manufacturers, well known for producing high quality objects across a wide variety of crafts. Read their stories and find out where you can shop their contemporary pieces, see their archive collections and even in some cases visit their workshops. Find exceptional ateliers where artisans collaborate creatively to create fine pieces of craftsmanship. Reach out to them to commission something special.

Ateliers & Manufacturers

All the artisans and small workshops featured in Homo Faber Guide have been carefully researched and selected. They are presented and narrated through a selection of images and an interview, which allows readers to immerse themselves in the universe of these makers who exemplify excellence in their individual fields or are promising talents of the future. Find masters and rising stars who share the same passion and determination, and whose workshops are ready to share their secrets with visitors.

A selection of the best artisans

Are you eager to discover a city through craftsmanship? Do you wish to spend a few hours visiting an applied arts museum or attending a course on a craft with one of the masters featured in Homo Faber Guide? Browse the section dedicated to experiences and find your next adventure.

Experiences

An expert artisan is an accomplished artisan who has been in activity for more than ten years. He or she may also be engaged in passing on their knowledge to the next generations, but they have been doing so for less than seven years. Beyond this, they will become a Master artisan.

Who is an Expert artisan?

Homo Faber Guide provides you with a selection of the best addresses across Europe and further afield, where you will be able to discover and purchase exceptional objects, some of which are created by artisans featured in Homo Faber Guide.

Galleries

Homo Faber Guide is an online platform dedicated to craftsmanship that allows you to discover artisans and their masterpieces; explore museums, visit galleries and shops selling unique objects; enjoy experiences in cities across Europe and beyond.

Homo Faber Guide is a signature project developed by the Michelangelo Foundation for Creativity and Craftsmanship, an international non-profit organisation based in Geneva, Switzerland, which was set up in 2016 thanks to the intuition of Franco Cologni and Johann Rupert. The Michelangelo Foundation’s mission is to celebrate and preserve master craftsmanship, and for this reason it has created a map of the most significant representatives in this field, with the aim of connecting all its protagonists: artisans, designers, gallery owners, art curators, collectors and enthusiasts of high-quality handmade pieces.

About the Guide

Are you an artisan, atelier or manufacturer? Would you like to be featured in Homo Faber Guide? The Michelangelo Foundation encourages self-assessment initiatives and is pleased to evaluate new members to appear on the Guide or in other projects. Thanks to the Master’s Touch Evaluation Tool, every artisan can send their application: register and access a questionnaire to see if you fulfill the 11 criteria for excellence that stand behind all the activities of the Michelangelo Foundation. If your answers reach the minimum requirement, your application will be brought to our attention; if, on the contrary, you should score below the minimum requirement, we will give you some points for improvement, in the hope that you may participate in future initiatives of the Michelangelo Foundation.

Join the Homo Faber Guide!

Our artisan labels

A master artisan is an accomplished artisan who has been in activity for more than ten years, and who has also been engaged in passing on his or her expertise to the younger generations for more than seven years. This is in keeping with one of the key values of the Michelangelo Foundation: the transmission of knowledge in craftsmanship.

Who is a Master artisan?

Find museums handpicked for their links to contemporary craftsmanship and the exquisite collections they have on display. In each city, discover a museum of interest and organise your visit. From Italian museums displaying coral collections, glass pieces and ceramics to decorative art museums in Russia and Greece, marvel at the variety of museums exhibiting masterpieces, showcasing techniques and recounting histories.

Museums

A rising star is an artisan who has been active for less than ten years, and who is capable of expressing his or her craft with competence, creativity and originality. Whether self-taught or trained, the rising star represents the future of craftsmanship, in creativity, concerns and approaches.

Who is a Rising star?

The artisans featured in Homo Faber Guide have been selected through a meticulous assessment process based on the 11 criteria for excellence, identified by Alberto Cavalli, Executive Director of the Michelangelo Foundation, in the volume The Master’s Touch, written with researchers Giuditta Comerci and Giovanna Marchello. The members of the Michelangelo Foundation’s network who have been invited to participate in sourcing artisans for the Guide use an evaluation tool based on these criteria. In this way, they can identify the most suitable artisans to include in the project.

Simple rules for a transparent selection

In which city does the artisan work?

In which country does the artisan practise?

What craft does the artisan practise?

What is the artisan’s Instagram page?

What is the name of the artisan you are recommending?

Does the artisan have a website?

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