Author: Maarten Koning

Switzerland is not in the top ten for Art Nouveau or Jugendstil architecture. The style was introduced in the years leading up to 1900 in the larger cities, especially in the Grand Hotels of the Belle Époque. 

The hotel and sanatorium architecture of this period was the first to incorporate Art Nouveau. The enormous growth of (spa) tourism from (Western) Europe and the USA coincided with the heyday of this style in the United Kingdom, Austria, Spain, Belgium, France and Germany.

Art Nouveau was taken for granted. Moreover, these hotels and sanatoria were often situated in or near nature, and Art Nouveau was closely linked to natural elements and geometric motifs.

In the larger cities, Art Nouveau was less prominently present. Primarily, industrialists commissioned buildings and decorations in this style due to their extensive networks in these countries.

The Chachelihüser (stove houses), the Pfauen complex, the Villa Tobler and the Gublerhaus are the best-known examples in Zurich.

The Paulus Church in Basel, the surrounding district, and the Globus department store complex on the Marktplatz are good examples in Basel.

The crematorium (Crématoire) in La Chaux-de-Fonds and the magnificent frescoes by Charles L´Éplattenier (1874-1946), a teacher of Le Corbusier, can rival the Art Nouveau style in Belgium or France. L’Eplattenier created a Style Sapin variant.

The villa Waldbüel in Uzwil (canton of St. Gallen) by the mechanical engineer Theodor Bühler (1877-1915) by the English architect MacKay Hugh Baillie Scott (1865-1945) is another story.

After a stay in England, the industrialist had this villa built or rebuilt between 1907 and 1911 in the Art Nouveau style, combining it with the Arts and Crafts movement, which was very popular in England at the time.

Apart from these buildings are several other residential houses, factories, department stores, and other structures with Art Nouveau features in various parts of the country, especially where industrialists or other European networkers were present.

(Source: T. Richter, ´Jugendstilarchitektur in der Schweiz´, in Kunst + Architektur, Nr. 2, 2021, GSK, Bern).

The city of Basel decreed in the sixteenth century that the houses in the villages had to be built in rows.

From 1500 until 1833 (when Basel was split into the cantons of Basel-Stadt and Basel-Landschaft), the city of Basel governed the villages in Baselbiet in the present-day canton of Basel-Landschaft. Steep gable roofs with house entrances facing the street are characteristic of the residential buildings in these village centres, known as the Baselbieter Wohnhäuser.

The usual plan was the two-room concept, featuring a kitchen, living area, and sleeping area, known as the Stube. Sometimes, there was a corridor, a cellar or, rarely, an additional room. The family slept in the Stube. The barn consisted of a threshing floor, which was flanked by two stables.

This type of house combined the living rooms and the agricultural spaces under one roof. There are still barns with threshing floors and stables located between the houses. However, most rooms have been converted into living rooms since 1970.

Most houses consisted of wood with thatched roofs until the seventeenth century. From the 18th century onwards, these houses were built in stone with tiled roofs.

The urban, monumental image of most villages around Basel bears witness to this.

(Source: www.reigoldswil.ch).

In 1893, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1939) learnt a relatively unknown sport: skiing. Two ski pioneers, Tobias and Johannes Branger, showed him how.

One year after the Branger brothers had conquered the route from Davos to Arosa over the Maienfelder Furgga for the first time on 23 March 1893, they repeated this trip with Sir Arthur in 1894.

His account of this legendary trip in the “Strand Magazine” in December 1894 was the first English report of a skiing experience. The response was overwhelming.  Sir Arthur laid the foundation for the ski boom in Davos (and Switzerland).

The text on the monument reads as follows:

(Quelle: www.davos.ch).

“In Tribute to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930). English author-creator of Sherlock Holmes and sportsman, who on March 23, 1894, crossed the Maienfelder Furka from Davos to Arosa, thereby bringing this new sport and the attractions of the Swiss Alps in Winter to the attention of the world. The perfect pattern of a gentleman”.