[5] It was founded in 1907 as the corporate museum of Swiss Post (later called PTT), the national postal service of Switzerland.

[7] The latest incarnation of the museum, which opened its doors with a redesigned permanent exhibition in 2017, is focused completely on its visitors.

[10] In recent years they have included the role of inhibitions,[11] the art of growing old[12] or the challenges and potential capacities of silence.

Following a period of renovation which lasted a year, the Museum of Communication Bern celebrated the reopening of its permanent exhibition on 17 August 2017.

Additional information on the themes addressed in the exhibition is also conveyed by communicators who are present at all times, and by encouraging the visitors to interact with each other.

The exhibits were displayed in their relevant social setting and the idea was to “present them in a well-thought-out and educational way, grouped according to a number of well-structured central themes”.

It was now independent and the new name also made it possible to show the exhibits from the historical collection in a wider thematic and chronological context under the overall topic of communication.

[7] A year later, the board signed off on a basic concept for the new exhibition which would involve visitors taking an active part in museum events.

The first part of the three-part permanent exhibition opened its doors in 2003 under the title “Adventures in Communication”, which was later changed to “Near and far: People and their media”.

[29] The other two parts of the permanent exhibition opened in 2007 under the titles: “As Time Goes Byte: Computers and digital culture” and “Images that stick: the world of postage stamps”.

The aim was to create an interactive, up-to-date Museum of Communication and, after a year-long closure for renovation work, the new core exhibition opened its doors in 2017.

[34] When the  Burgergemeinde and the municipality and Canton of Bern developed plans to build a heritage protection centre in the Kirchenfeld area, of which only a small part was ultimately realised, a new purpose-built PTT Museum finally became a reality and in 1990 it moved to the building designed by architect Andrea Roost on Helvetiastrasse in the Kirchenfeld quarter,[35] where it is still located today.

Together, the two companies decided to establish the Schweizerische Stiftung für die Geschichte der Post und Telekommunikation.

By transporting and conveying messages, goods, money and people, the postal service transcended space and time.

Morse telegraphs are among the oldest objects in this part of the collection, which also includes more than 1,500 telephones from all eras and various technologies up to today's smartphones with touchscreens.

From the establishment of the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SRG) in 1931 until the end of the 1980s, the PTT was also responsible for the procurement and maintenance of the studio equipment.

An agreement with SRG SSR idée suisse ensures the continuation of the collection of objects from radio and television studios.

On the one hand it documents the technological advances, on the other it maintains the audio-visual cultural heritage of Switzerland in the museum's own collections and makes them accessible to a wider audience.

Until the establishment of the foundation in 1997, the IT collection was part of the telecommunications holdings and mainly included mainframe computers from the Swiss PTT companies.

Since the foundation was established, additions to the holdings are strictly limited to objects and works that relate to the museum's core themes.

The museum houses and maintains the most important collection of photographic records of the Swiss post and telecommunications service, both past and present.

The holdings also contain photographic records of national relevance on the history of road and rail traffic, travel and tourism and of Alpine mountaineering.

A comprehensive long-term project launched in 2019 aims to preventively conserve and digitalise the photographic collection, thereby making it accessible to all.

The art collection is not part of the traditional core holdings of the museum but is actively maintained because it raises questions concerning communication and because it can be used to convey complex issues related to the topic.

It comprises some three million postage stamps and has been part of the museum's core holdings since the foundation was first established.

The postage stamps provided to the World Postal Union by its member states, which now number 192, are also part of the museum's philately collection.