Palais de Rumine

The Palais de Rumine in Lausanne, Switzerland is a public palace built by the city of Lausanne at the turn of the 20th century in an Italianate, Florentine Renaissance (neo‑Renaissance) manner. Erected from funds left by Gabriel de Rumine, the building became a principal centre for higher learning and cultural collections in the city, housing university facilities, libraries and municipal scientific and artistic holdings. Its prominent urban siting near the Cité and its use for major civic functions gave it an important role in cantonal and international affairs during the 20th century.

Funding for the project came from a bequest of 1.5 million Swiss francs from Gabriel de Rumine; some records add that the capital was to be allowed to grow and be used fifteen years after his death in 1871. After evaluating several possibilities, the city chose a site at the eastern side of the Riponne square and work began in 1898. The original designer died before the palace was finished and the project was completed under other hands. One record gives an inauguration date of 3 November 1902 with final completion in 1906; another record gives the official opening as 3 November 1906. From its opening the palace served as the main building for the Lausanne Academy, accommodated the cantonal and university library, and contained municipal scientific and artistic collections.

The palace’s large assembly hall, the Aula (assembly hall), was the setting for the signing of the Treaty of Lausanne on 24 July 1923. That treaty settled the boundaries and international relations of the Republic of Turkey after World War I and replaced earlier wartime arrangements. The table used at the signing was returned to Turkey in 2008 by Federal Councillor Pascal Couchepin. Museum displays formed part of the building’s programme from early on, including an industrial arts museum inaugurated on 12 September 1909.

During the later 20th century university activities moved away from the palace to a campus at Dorigny; sources give either around 1970 or during the 1980s for that transfer. After the university relocated, the palace was reorganised to concentrate on museum and library uses. Following a fire at the Grand Council building, the cantonal legislature met in the palace from 2002 until 2017, when the Grand Council returned to a new building in the Cité. In recent years the cantonal museum structure has been rearranged: the fine arts collection moved to Plateforme 10 in 2019, and on 1 January 2023 the cantonal museums of geology, zoology and botany were united as the Cantonal Museum of Natural Sciences. The palace marked its centenary in 2006 with the exhibition “Voyage en Ruminie” and in 2018 mounted “COSMOS” to mark the bicentenary of the Cantonal Museum’s foundation. The building and the collections it contains are listed as Swiss cultural property of national significance.