OMEGA Museum in Biel/Bienne

Location

Biel/Bienne, Switzerland

Address

Cité du Temps, Nicolas G. Hayek Strasse 2, 2502 Biel/Bienne

Opened

1984

Type

Brand museum

Official website ↗

History of the museum

Omega opened its museum in Biel/Bienne, the city where the company is headquartered, to the public in 1984. In 2019 the museum moved into a new building, the Cité du Temps, designed entirely by the Japanese architect and Pritzker Prize winner Shigeru Ban. The Cité du Temps describes itself as an exhibition center open to the public and entirely dedicated to time. It houses two museums on two floors: the OMEGA Museum on the first floor and Planet Swatch on the second.

What you can see

The museum tells the brand's story through showcases, films and interactive experiences. According to the Cité du Temps, highlights include:

• A 360° history of time as an introduction to the exhibition.
• A giant walk-in Speedmaster and a lunar surface to walk across, referring to Omega's space history. On 20 July 1969 Buzz Aldrin stepped onto the Moon wearing his Omega Speedmaster.
• A 9-meter running track where visitors can time their own performance with Omega's official timekeeping technology. Omega has been the Olympic timekeeper since the 1932 Summer Olympics.
• A 50-meter steel bracelet with 64 "treasury windows" showing moments from the brand's history.
• An animation explaining the Co-Axial escapement, one of Omega's key technical developments.
• A display on Omega's history of women's watchmaking and a James Bond 007 section.
• A showcase of the brand's recent activities and many Omega watches.

The museum's holdings include the world's first minute-repeating wristwatch, an 18K gold piece made in 1892 with an Audemars Piguet movement. In May 2018 the museum was also the winning bidder for Elvis Presley's 1960 Omega at a Phillips auction in Geneva. Whether individual pieces are on display at a given time should be confirmed with the museum.

Why it matters for watch collectors and owners

For Speedmaster owners, the walk-in Speedmaster, the lunar surface and the space-history displays put the watch in context. The Co-Axial animation explains a technology found in many current Omega movements. The 50-meter bracelet with its 64 windows gives a compact timeline of the brand, founded in 1848 in La Chaux-de-Fonds by Louis Brandt. Because Planet Swatch is in the same building, visitors can see two very different brands of the Swatch Group in one visit. The museum is an exhibition, not an appraisal service; questions about an individual watch should go to Omega directly.

Visiting

The OMEGA Museum is located on the first floor of the Cité du Temps, Nicolas G. Hayek Strasse 2, 2502 Biel/Bienne.

Opening hours and admission (as of 2026, according to the official Cité du Temps website): Tuesday to Sunday, 10:00 to 17:00; closed on Mondays and public holidays. Admission is free for adults, children under 12, adolescents under 18, students and AHV/AI recipients. Group visits must be requested by email at least 72 hours in advance, subject to availability, and groups or school classes with more than 10 participants should contact the museum.

Getting there: from Biel/Bienne railway station, take bus line 2, 3, 4 or 72 to the "OMEGA" stop. Parking around the museum is limited to blue-zone spaces with a one-hour maximum and a parking disc, so public transport is the practical choice. Biel/Bienne station is a junction on the Swiss east-west main line and the Basel-Bern line.

A watch-themed day trip can be extended to the Longines Museum in Saint-Imier, which is on the railway line from Biel/Bienne to La Chaux-de-Fonds.

Related brands

• Omega

Opening hours, prices and exhibitions change. Please check the official website before your visit.

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