🇨🇭 The ambivalent History of the Swiss Chalet 🇨🇭

An International Symbol of Switzerland: the Swiss Chalet contains stories from Rousseau to the RAF, from the rise of tourism and from the perversion of the former shepherd's hut.

On December 4, 2009, film director Roman Polanski arrived at his “Milky Way” chalet in Gstaad – accompanied by TV crews and a horde of photographers.

Photo: Keystone

They are small and fine, the temporary exhibitions in the Swiss National Library. The history of the chalet is currently being discussed – in the middle of a massive wooden beam construction. And it turns out: Behind the wooden house there is a rich fund of episodes.

The chalet was once simply a wooden house in the mountains - until the Geneva Enlightener Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) glorified it in his bestseller "Julie ou la Nouvelle Héloïse". He saw nothing but virtuous values in the Swiss-style hut: simplicity, closeness to nature, freedom and democracy. First known in France and then across Europe,

The Chalet became the first SWISSNESS item ever

A Swiss Chalet as a Souvenir

The Swiss Chalet immediately shaped the image of Switzerland. In the pioneering days - from 1780 - tourism was synonymous with enthusiasm for the Alps.
Switzerland was perfect as the venue for the race for the first ascents to the summit. The country and its mystified "pastoral people" became a symbol of the real and true - like its wooden symbol, the chalet. Travel reports, novels and paintings multiply the perception of the mountain idyll.

A souvenir mini-chalet made before 1914 on display in a display case in the National Library.
Photo: mfe

Swiss Chalets off the shelf

No tourism without souvenirs: the miniature chalet was very popular. Also as a casket and music box, but mostly as a model. The wood manufacturer Jobin, founded in Brienz in 1838, produced elaborately manufactured mini-chalets. Until 1914, it had branches throughout Switzerland. The houses are now very collectible. The first boom phase of tourism ended with the First World War. Today, the souvenirs are mass-produced, mostly made in China.

The Kuoni Holzbau company in Chur offered chalets of all sizes.
Photo: PD

This is how Swiss Chalet Factories came into being. Kuoni Holzbau in Chur was the leader. But the wooden houses were also mass-produced in Bern, in the chalet and parquet factory in Sulgenbach. They were sold internationally and were even exported overseas.
Due to its widespread distribution, the chalet fared like other exploited traditions such as yodelling, traditional costumes and cheese: with the multitude, the diversity decreased. Industrialized production made the chalets more and more similar to each other.
The wooden houses were not only exported. They also appeared in the Swiss lowlands. For example in Burgdorf, where the artificial wool manufacturer Johannes Schafroth had a chalet-style villa built in 1872/73. Today it stands on the Ballenberg as a symbol of the emerging national pride in the 19th century, which was also noticeable in the urban architecture.

The Suspicious Pomp Chalet

Today, the Swiss Chalet is no longer just a simple wooden house. In fashionable destinations like Gstaad, magnificent buildings dominate, which functionally embody the opposite of the original shepherd's hut. Just like the chalet of the German publisher Axel Springer (1912-1985). He had it built in 1967/68 near Rougemont (VD), the neighboring municipality of Saanen. At 1800 meters altitude. "In summer a jeep had to bring up the champagne, in winter a helicopter," wrote the "Spiegel" in 2006. The building permit for the property far from the village was not for nothing, Springer received it thanks to a donation of 400,000 marks to set up one large community hall.
On January 5, 1975, the house caught fire. Initially, it was assumed that the left-wing German terrorist organization RAF was the perpetrator, although the confession letter written in French to the French news agency AFP sounded strange. The real arsonist came out in 2006: the author Daniel de Roulet, who was born in Geneva in 1944, published his confession in his 160-page book "A Sunday in the Mountains".
In it he writes that as a moved young man he wanted to impress his girlfriend at the time – as a man of action. Because the matter is statute-barred, the confession had no legal consequences. De Roulet landed a bestseller - after the perfectly staged publication, the press commented critically to disgusted about this own crime, which was exploited in monetary terms.

The Chalet in the storm of world events

The Swiss Chalet today has a somewhat contradictory effect. On the one hand as an original, comfortable, nature-loving retreat, on the other hand as a fortress for the super-rich who are taxed at a flat rate. It also gets the focus of public attention again and again