Sobre este lugar
Housed in a striking rotunda on Löwenplatz, the Bourbaki Panorama is one of the very few surviving giant panoramas in the world, a form of immersive spectacle that thrilled audiences long before cinema existed. Its single continuous canvas stretches an astonishing 112 metres in circumference and roughly 10 metres high, curving in a full circle so that visitors stand at the centre of the scene. Painted by Geneva artist Édouard Castres in 1881, it depicts the internment of General Bourbaki's shattered Armée de l'Est, some 87,000 French soldiers who crossed into neutral Switzerland during the Franco-Prussian War. Rather than glorifying battle, the work dwells on exhaustion, frostbite and mercy, making it one of art's earliest monuments to humanitarian aid and the young Red Cross. Today three-dimensional foreground objects, sound and light draw you even deeper into that frozen, moving moment.
Datos clave
- 112 metres — The circumference of the single continuous canvas that surrounds visitors
- 87000 soldiers — French troops of the Armée de l'Est interned in Switzerland in early 1871
- 1881 year — When Édouard Castres and his team completed the monumental painting
📍 Löwenplatz 10, 6004, Luzern