Stuttgart, Germany

The Pig Museum

An old slaughterhouse now holds the largest collection of pig artifacts.

A lot of people on farms don’t name their livestock for fear of getting too attached. After years of being on the front-line of pork manufacture, an abattoir in Stuttgart went the opposite direction and embraced its former product, dedicating the former pig killing ground to a museum of swine history and art.

Housing 42,000 different pig artifacts, the Pig Museum was designed with a chic look to cover up its more visceral past without losing the aesthetic of a warehouse. In each of the 25 themed rooms, visitors can open small hatches on stacks of crates to reveal any number of pig paraphernalia. Although some of the rooms are geared toward children, visitors of any age can enjoy the nostalgia of the piggy bank room and the awe-inspiring “golden pig room” with a massive, golden, rotating pig sculpture.

Along with sculptures and other pig-dedicated art, the museum also takes a formal approach to the farm animal, giving a short history that dates back to the first domesticated pigs in Turkey 9000 years ago. Whether you come as fans of bacon or the gallant pig Babe, you are certainly to leave with a newfound respect for the animal, and an overwhelming sense of cuteness from the world’s largest pig museum.

There is of course a restaurant on the ground floor that serves, what else, but tons of pork.