20 years of a Night at the Museum
Luxembourg celebrates the 20th anniversary of its Night of the Museums on Saturday 9 October, with a special programme involving seven of the city’s most popular museums. There’ll be tours, music, dance performances, storytelling, kids workshops and a party at Casino Luxembourg.
Before you go
Advance tickets cost €10 for adults, €3 for 16-26 years and free for children. On the night, tickets are €15 and €7 respectively. It’s a Covid Check event so bring your certificate (digital or paper). You cannot present a self-test at the box office, but you can get a free antigen test at the centre at 70 Grand Rue until 21.00 on the night. Visitors 6 years and under are exempt from providing a certificate.
What’s happening at each museum
As ever in Luxembourg, tours and events are multi-lingual and in English, German, Luxembourgish and French. Please check the links provided for exact times of tours for each language.
Villa Vauban
Following the recent restoration work on François Gillen’s colourful mosaics, you can meet the restorers, and children (from 6 years unaccompanied, 4 years accompanied) can try their hand at mosaic making.
Take a musical stroll with cellist Annemie Osborne, who will play a mix of classical and traditional songs, plus some improvisation. There are also free guided tours of the exhibition Pour Elise, based on the story of Elise Hack, born in Echternach in 1860, who became the partner of historian and art critic Henry Harvard in 19th century Paris, and bequeathed a collection of paintings, watercolours, sketches and engravings to the City of Luxembourg in 1922. You can also take a stroll through European painting and sculpture from the 17th to 19th centuries, meet the Masters, and discover the Villa Vauban casemates by flashlight.
Casino Luxembourg
Take a picture in the photobooth to find out if you have a "Straight Nose, Queer Mouth" with Elodie Grethen’s clever take to confront people’s stereotypes and perceptions of sexual orientation, and the need to classify homosexual and heterosexual.
Author Marie-Isabelle Callier invites children to accompany her little faun on a nocturnal visit through the city, and then create their own neon night scenes using wax crayons and black paint. Artist collective ykasppkmkm will perform contemporary dance, song and music, whilst you can also take a guided tour of Karolina Markiewicz and Pascal Piron’s multi-media exhibition entitled "Stronger than memory and weaker than dewdrops".
Lëtzbuerg City Museum
Children can create a treasure box, whilst you can also take one of several 30-minute tours on “Conspiracy Theories” in the 20th and 21st centuries, one from the Middle Ages, one in 1960s-70s America, one on the Freemasons and Illuminati, one on the Jewish world conspiracy, and one on Luxembourgish conspiracy theories. There are also tours on contemporary art and the development of the fortress of Luxembourg City.
Hear from Thomas Iser a French-Luxembourgish globetrotter, performer, photographer and painter, whose graffiti-art inspired project Universal Humanity includes Pharrell Williams, Nicole Scherzinger, Willem Dafoe, Gigi Hadid, Mark Seliger and David Lachapelle.
The museum is located in a complex of four historical houses, and you can discover the capital’s eventful past from the Middle Ages through the museum’s architecture on a 60-minute tour.
MNHA (History & Art)
Become the Flintstones, and take a family tour back in time to the stone age, where instead of homework, kids get to go hunting or make a fire, as they discover everyday life at that time, and meet Wulles, the MNHA mascot.
Take a guided tour of the 50-year career of Luxembourgish artist Robert Brandy, including some previously unseen works. A music and dance performance by Ileana Orofina and Damiano Picci translates some of the paintings and brings them to life, whilst kids can discover the connection between Bolitho Blane and the artist, creating their own fictional character.
The night also promises, musical performances from SAXITUDE to get you into a good mood to the sound of four saxophones, and the chance to make your own photographic mosaic portrait inspired by the work of Roland Schauls. There are guided tours on the exhibitions “Rethinking Landscape” and “Supports/Surfaces – modern French painting”.
Nature Museum
Head down to Grund to hear from Mr Science, aka Joseph Rodesch, a mediator between science and non-scientists providing an informative and fun view of science. You can also hear tracks from writer Luc Spada’s first music album.
There’ll be guided tours of the “Lost Ocean” exhibition from the museum’s palaeontologist, where fossil treasures return to an ancient ocean filled with Jurassic sea monsters. And you can join a book reading from Isabelle Marinov, author of “Leo and the Octopus” and “The boy whose head was filled with stars, the life of Edwin Hubble”.
Three Acorns Museum (Dräi Eechelen)
Who were the Luxembourgish legionnaires and what were they doing in France? Find out through numerous animation and audio stories in this multi-media tour. You can also join charismatic Adam Sigmund von Thüngen, commander of the fortress in the 18th century, on his personal journey in Luxembourg and the development of the fortress.
There’s a medal-making workshop for kids, guided tours of the paintings and art on display, and the weapons of the fortress, plus his thoughts of life, history and his love of Luxembourg, from American in Luxembourg, Mike McQuaide.
MUDAM
The MUDAM asks you “what if plants could sing”, and then shows you with the Playtronica studio which transforms ordinary plants into musical instruments which you play by stroking the leaves.
There’ll also be an expanded version of “If,If,If, Then” a choreographic work by Jacopo Jenna, performed by three dancers, which sees contemporary dance as a direct response to surroundings creating a visual collage of street dance, and other forms of modern dance. There are also guided tours and talks.
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