Born from the vision of Ms. Nadia Karmous to create a space in Switzerland centered around Muslim culture, Mucivi (Museum of Civilizations of Islam) allows the cultural hub of La Chaux-de-Fonds to host a place of exchange, meetings, and discovery. The exhibition museum presents, through an innovative staging that combines images, sounds, lighting atmospheres, and technological devices, 15 centuries of Islamic civilization history—a movement that leads to the diversity of practices and questions posed today by a religion followed by more than one and a half billion people worldwide.
Opened in 2016, Mucivi is housed in a listed Art Nouveau building on the main street of the watchmaking metropolis in the canton of Neuchâtel. This city is home to several renowned cultural institutions, and its streets and buildings’ architecture have been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2009. On the building’s facade, five women—allegories of the five continents—set the tone for a visit marked by encounter and journey. Mucivi was created by a multidisciplinary team of specialists: a long-term project dating back to the early 2000s for a unique place in Europe.