Exhibitions

Introductory exhibition
The museum tour starts in the introductory exhibition. There, you can learn more about the themes of the museum through touchscreens, items and literature. The museum tour ends in the same exhibition, which means that you can also visit the introductory exhibition at the end.

Qwensel House
The Qwensel House is the oldest remaining wooden building in Turku. The interior is decorated in the rococo and Gustavian styles of the late 18th century. Here, you can explore the period of time in Turku and the life of the family of the most famous resident of the house, Joseph Pipping, or Pippingsköld after he was raised to the nobility, the father of Finnish surgery. The Pipping family lived in the house from 1789 to 1815. The hall, drawing room, bedroom, nursery and master’s and mistress’s rooms are decorated with authentic period furniture.

In the Christmas holiday season, the Qwensel House exhibits Christmas table settings and customs from the turn of the 18th and 19th century.

Pharmacy Museum
The Pharmacy Museum is located in the wing built in the beginning of the 19th century. The oldest items on display are over 200 years old, and the pharmacy’s shopping area houses the oldest remaining pharmacy interior in Finland dating back to 1858 from Oulu. In addition to the shopping area, the museum includes workrooms for the self-sufficient pharmacy, i.e. the materials room, two laboratories and the herb room.

All of the items in the museum are authentic pharmacy items from the period. The items have been donated by local pharmacies and pharmacies around Finland. One of the donors was apothecary Åke Lydman, whose collection, donated in the 1960s, contains more than 1,000 items, including some of the rarest in the museum.