Walser House Museum in Macugnaga

The Walser House Museum in Macugnaga was founded in 1982 to collect, catalogue and preserve the things used by the Walser people of Macugnaga in their daily lives.

The Walsers led frugal, self-sufficient lives; they had few raw materials – stone, wood, some metals –  but put them to good use in their work. The museum shows tangible examples of their skill in carving and turning wood, sculpting, and putting things together in ingenious ways.

The museum is housed in the 17th century priest’s house in the village of Borca. The exhibits were largely donated by local people, whose generosity was essential to the success of the project. The house occupies three floors: basement, ground floor and upper floor. The basement was once used as the cellar, but now contains a permanent collection of reproductions of old prints and photographs. The ground floor is occupied by the kitchen, the entrance and the “stube”, the main room in the house, and the most completely furnished. On the upper floor is a room devoted to traditional crafts, a room illustrating how bread was baked, and a room displaying valuable documents belonging to the mining company.

The Museum displays over 650 exhibits (from the 14th to the 20th centuries) relating to the daily lives of the Walser colony of Macugnaga: cooking pots, basins, clothes, books and tools, among many others. The Walser Museum of Borca is open at different times of day depending on the tourist season.