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All Switzerland Basel Hoosesagg Museum (Pants Pocket Museum)

Hoosesagg Museum (Pants Pocket Museum)

The smallest museum in Basel, Switzerland, is a two-foot-by-two-foot window in the door of a 600-year-old house.

Basel, Switzerland

Added By
Linda Golden
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Hoosesagg Museum, fire department exhibition, 2019.   Courtesy of Hoosesagg Museum
Hoosesagg Museum, fire department exhibition, 2019.   Courtesy of Hoosesagg Museum
Hoosesagg Museum, Paris Eiffel Tower exhibition, 2019.   Courtesy of Hoosesagg Museum
Hoosesagg Museeum, Beatles exhibition, 2015.   Courtesy of Hoosesagg Museum
  incohatus / Atlas Obscura User
Train ticket exhibition 2020   edwin13ok / Atlas Obscura User
  morganegyzermans / Atlas Obscura User
Hoosesagg Museum- August 2022   Jason C / Atlas Obscura User
  meganparmele / Atlas Obscura User
The window next to the museum   CoolCrab / Atlas Obscura User
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About

The smallest museum in Basel, Switzerland, is a two-foot-by-two-foot window in the door of a 600-year-old house. Since 1995, collections of everyday objects and memorabilia—toothbrushes, Pez dispensers, porcelain shoes, Pokémon—have rotated through the window of the Pants Pocket Museum (Hoosesagg Museum).

Located in Imbergässlein (Ginger Alley), a narrow pedestrian alley in Old Town Basel, the museum was the homeowners' solution to the prying eyes of passersby. Walking tours frequently stopped outside the house, for its historical value—it was the home of Basel’s first midwife—and for its facade, which includes a painting of St. Christopher.

Tourists’ eyes often wandered to the windows of the house’s ground floor room. So the homeowners, Dagmar and Matthias Vergeat, built a display case that fit over the window pane in the door and installed a selection of schnapps glasses. “We left [them] for three, four, five months, and then thought, ‘It’s boring, always having the same thing,'” Dagmar says.

The Vergeats began rotating different assortments of items through the window. Their collections of Swiss cowbells, doorbell buttons, sunglasses, and nativity scene figurines, to name a few, include “several thousand” items, in Dagmar’s estimation. After about six months, strangers began asking if the couple would exhibit their collections. The Vergeats named their window the Pants Pocket Museum, because most items displayed could fit in a pocket. Today, the Pants Pocket Museum invites anyone with a collection of 30 or more items to exhibit them in the tiny museum.

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The Pants Pocket Museum is located at 31 Imbergässlein, a two-minute walk from Basel's Marktplatz. Imbergässlein is a pedestrian alley with stairs.

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Added By

ljgolden

Edited By

CoolCrab, lexberko, incohatus, Jason C...

  • CoolCrab
  • lexberko
  • incohatus
  • Jason C
  • edwin13ok
  • morganegyzermans
  • meganparmele

Published

March 19, 2019

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Hoosesagg Museum (Pants Pocket Museum)
Imbergässlein 31
Basel, CH-4051
Switzerland
47.557966, 7.585844
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The Smallest Museum in Switzerland Is a Window in a 600-Year-Old House

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By Linda Golden

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