Museum of Music Boxes and Automatons


Sainte-Croix - Cochet

Sainte-Croix - Cochet

The clockmaker Antoine Favre-Salomon, a native of Geneva, invented a musical pocket watch in 1796. Since then he is considered to be the inventor of the music box, and Sainte-Croix became the world capital of mechanical music. Music automatons are still produced here.

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Sainte-Croix welcomes visitors with a sign-post stating: "Welcome to the land of mechanical dreams". Towards the end of the 19th century, up to 600 workers in over 40 companies produced mechanical singing birds and music automatons in Sainte-Croix. The village in Canton Vaud thus became the capital of music boxes and mechanical music.

The CIMA Museum (Centre International de la Mécanique d'Art) is solely dedicated to music boxes and mechanical music. The museum exhibits the history of mechanical music with objects ranging from singing birds to music boxes to the cylinder phonograph invented by Thomas Edison. The museum is located in the erstwhile factory building of the Paillard company. Most of the exhibits stem from that company.

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