Contact us
Riva di Pilastri, 20
6922 Morcote (CH)
T. +41 58 2206502
morcote@luganoregion.com
Opening times
{Season 2025}
Open from 15 March to 10 November, daily, at the following times:
[*] 15 March to 30 April, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
[*] 1 May to 30 September, from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.
[*] 1 October to 10 November, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
[*]
Tickets
Free admission
History
Scherrer Park, located in Morcote on the shores of Lake Ceresio, is one of the most significant historic gardens in the Canton of Ticino. Gardens of this kind began to emerge after the opening of the Gotthard railway tunnel in 1882, when Ticino became a favoured destination for holidaymakers from Northern Europe, drawn by its mild climate and lakes.
The park was designed and created by Arthur Scherrer, a textile merchant from St. Gallen, born in 1881 into a culturally vibrant family. Notably, his father, Hermann Scherrer, was not only a merchant but also the founder of Switzerland's first puppet theatre.
Between the late 1920s and 1956, the year of his death, Arthur Scherrer shaped this garden as a projection of his symbolic universe - a place where his inner quest took form as landscape.
A child of his time, Scherrer was deeply imbued with the values of spiritual exploration that characterised the cultural milieus of Ticino and Munich at the beginning of the twentieth century. Contexts in which he moved, and in which ancient cultures, both Eastern and Western, were looked to in search of values capable of responding to the anxieties of the age.
According to a recent interpretation by Officina del Paesaggio, the park can be understood as a genuine initiatory journey, leading visitors through multiple spiritual microcosms shaped by the overlapping of gardens that connect a series of temples dedicated to light, each inspired by an ancient civilisation.
Scherrer's widow left the park to the Municipality of Morcote in 1965, with the explicit wish that it be opened to the public.
The park was designed and created by Arthur Scherrer, a textile merchant from St. Gallen, born in 1881 into a culturally vibrant family. Notably, his father, Hermann Scherrer, was not only a merchant but also the founder of Switzerland's first puppet theatre.
Between the late 1920s and 1956, the year of his death, Arthur Scherrer shaped this garden as a projection of his symbolic universe - a place where his inner quest took form as landscape.
A child of his time, Scherrer was deeply imbued with the values of spiritual exploration that characterised the cultural milieus of Ticino and Munich at the beginning of the twentieth century. Contexts in which he moved, and in which ancient cultures, both Eastern and Western, were looked to in search of values capable of responding to the anxieties of the age.
According to a recent interpretation by Officina del Paesaggio, the park can be understood as a genuine initiatory journey, leading visitors through multiple spiritual microcosms shaped by the overlapping of gardens that connect a series of temples dedicated to light, each inspired by an ancient civilisation.
Scherrer's widow left the park to the Municipality of Morcote in 1965, with the explicit wish that it be opened to the public.