Schweinemuseum

The Schweinemuseum in Stuttgart-Gaisburg occupies a century-old former slaughterhouse office built in 1912 by Albert Pantle. Its Jugendstil architecture frames more than 800 square metres of exhibition space across 27 rooms. The collection began in 1989 when Erika Wilhelmer started a private museum in Bad Wimpfen, gathering objects around the pig. By the 2010s the holdings had grown to over 50,000 pieces. Today her son Michael Wilhelmer runs both the museum and an attached restaurant. The displays trace 9,000 years of human interaction with the pig, showing how the animal has alternately symbolised luck and excess. Visitors encounter everything from butchery tools and hunting scenes to laboratory pigs and a gallery of ancestral boars. There are sections on pigs worldwide, pig Latin, calendar pigs, mythological swine, and even a piggy bank vault. Temporary shows add further contemporary works. Rooms such as the pigsty, the sauna for sows, and the miniature pig nursery let visitors walk among the exhibits. A large arena area hosts changing installations. The museum also keeps a depot of spare parts and a global collection of pig-related items. Outside, the old slaughterhouse courtyard offers space for larger events. Inside, the mix of historic architecture and playful pig culture creates an unusual setting.