Landslide Museum, Landslide museum in Goldau, Arth, Switzerland

The Landslide Museum in Arth documents a major natural event through photographs, objects, and scientific data collected from a mountain disaster. The collection shows how researchers studied the power of the earth and the movement of rock during this time.

The museum preserves evidence of a major mountain collapse that occurred in September 1806 and killed many people. This event led physicians and researchers to begin studying natural disasters scientifically.

The museum keeps the 1806 report that physician Carl Zay compiled from eyewitness accounts, the first scientific treatment of a landslide. The exhibition also shows how the memory of the disaster is kept alive in Arth: the date 2 September 1806 is still marked locally, and the collected testimonies remain the basis for later research on the Goldau slide.

The museum is in Arth, in the canton of Schwyz, a short walk from the village centre and the shore of Lake Lauerz. The Goldau landslide area and its debris field lie just beyond the village, so the museum works as a starting point for a walk across the terrain it documents. Exhibits are laid out over a small number of rooms.

The museum displays original soil samples and rocks from the 1806 event that visitors can touch and examine. These physical objects help people understand why the earth moved at that time.