Switzerland Guide
Valais
Fondation Pierre Gianadda
Established in 1978 by a local philanthropist, Léonard Gianadda, and named after his brother, the Fondation Pierre Gianadda complex takes in several areas within a single museum.
The main focus is the changing series of top-flight art exhibitions staged in the main gallery area: recent major shows have focused on such names as Chagall, Modigliani, Cartier-Bresson, Picasso and Van Gogh. The gallery space is not huge, but the quality of works brought in from around the world is always very high. The upper level of the gallery is given over to the Musée Archéologique Gallo-Romain, an interesting collection of statues, coins, pottery, jewellery and other bits and bobs garnered from digs around Martigny. Prime exhibit, which serves as the Foundation's mascot, is an impressive bronze head of a bull, dating from the first or second century AD. The whole building is constructed around the remains of a Gallo-Roman temple dedicated to Mercury, the inner-sanctum walls of which have been left intact.
In a back area is a small permanent exhibition in the Salle Franck of ten modernist works donated from a private collection, which includes Picasso's Nu aux jambes croisées (1903), produced during the artist's blue period. Further along the corridor, the smell of motor oil and rubber prelude the subterranean Musée de l'Auto, displaying fifty-odd vintage cars including a Model T Ford (1912), and a dashingly elegant Lagonda (1936). Outside is another highlight, the Parc des Sculptures, an open area of green overlooked by Martigny's wooded slopes and dotted with works by – among many others – Rodin, Moore and Miró. Alongside the café at the rear of the park is the Vieil Arsenal, which stages excellent shows of photography and modern art.
Within a few hundred metres of the museum, to the south beyond the train tracks, lies Martigny's Roman amphitheatre, dating from the second to fourth centuries AD and now restored to seat 5000 spectators. It comes into its own as the venue for the annual cowfighting championships in early October, but otherwise it's a quiet, grassy corner from which to survey the wooded slopes all around.
Opening time: Daily June– Nov 9am–7pm; rest of year 10am–6pm
Price: Fr.15
Website: www.gianadda.ch