Since the weather forecast said it wasn't going to rain, I decided to visit Ballenberg.
As the only open-air museum in Switzerland, Ballenberg provides insights into the country’s everyday rural and commercial life. Covering an area of 66 hectares, Ballenberg is the largest museum in Switzerland. It welcomes around 200,000 visitors during its season.
This year's theme
"You can visit and admire over 100 rural houses and farm buildings from all over Switzerland. Magnificent farmhouses, humble workers’ quarters, alpine huts and stalls, barns, store-houses, wash-houses and drying ovens provide architectural as well as socio-historical testimony to the everyday life and rural culture of the past."
"These historical buildings could not be maintained at their original location and were, therefore, carefully dismantled and transported to the museum’s 66 hectares of land to be reconstructed. Kitchens, parlors, and other quarters provide insight into the daily life of rural Switzerland."
They sell these smoked sausage.
"The woodland playground aims to focus attention even more on the topics of forests and wood: without forests and wood, there would be no Ballenberg. More than 100 buildings were dismantled in one place and rebuilt in the Open-Air Museum. Support beam by support beam. Without skilled craftsmanship and a feel for wood, this would be almost impossible to achieve. Without forests, most of the houses in Ballenberg and the furniture and tools exhibited there simply would not exist. The individual play stations of the new woodland playground are therefore entirely devoted to the forest or to the raw material wood. In an initial phase, a converted ‘Schürli’ barn, a large sandpit and woodland shelters were be opened to the public. Construction will continue until 2024, when the nature playground offering rich play experiences for children of all ages is set to be completed."
"Traditional gardening and landscape management is a cultural heritage of the first rank in Switzerland. It is the result of centuries of human involvement with the climate, the soils and the flora and fauna. This knowledge, which was once essential for survival, must be actively cultivated, maintained and communicated today."
"Traditional approaches to gardening and landscaping are part of Switzerland’s cultural heritage – at the very highest level. They are the result of people’s centuries-long engagement with the climate, the soil, flora and fauna. Now, the task lies in actively cultivating, preserving and conveying this knowledge that was once crucial for survival."
"The Swiss Open-Air Museum has taken up this challenge ever since its foundation: it enables visitors to actively experience the importance of farm gardens and cultural landscapes with all their senses, while also growing traditional varieties of fruit and vegetables and providing a vivid demonstration of how people used to preserve food."
"The maintenance of the gardens and fields at the Open-Air Museum Ballenberg is supported by the Federal Office for Agriculture (FOAG) as part of the National Action Plan for the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Plant Genetic Resources (NAP-PGREL)."
"A treasure of magical herbs grows in the medicinal herb garden of the Swiss Open-Air Museum Ballenberg. Their powers lie in the curative qualities which they can develop. In former times knowledge of the art of healing in the country was a part of everyday life."
Do you take this before or after an HOA meeting for stress relief?
Can you guess the smell?
"The Ballenberg Open-Air Museum first opened its doors in 1978. At that time, there were just 16 objects displayed in the museum. Today, over 100 historic buildings from all over the country are open to visitors on the museum site. At the end of the 19th century folklore museums made everyday objects and living conditions of the rural population accessible to a wider public. The systematic collection and exhibition of traditional cultural objects combined with educational goals and the emphasis on reaching a wide audience still characterizes open-air museums today."
"In 1978, the Swiss Open-Air Museum Ballenberg finally opened its doors and was presented to the public during a three-day celebration. After opening with 16 buildings, there were already 25 two years later and a total of 61 in 1985. Today, there are over 100 houses and other secondary buildings at Ballenberg. The basis for the academic concept of the Open-Air Museum Ballenberg was the work done by farmhouse researchers in Switzerland. It was fundamental in ensuring that there was a wide choice of the most important, typically characteristic forms of houses, farmsteads and settlements in this country."
"During the season, more than 200 farm animals roam the museum grounds: from families of chickens, hares, pigs, sheep, goats and cows to large oxen. The museum's animals also include breeds that are rarely found anywhere else in the country."
"Most of the Ballenberg animals are brought to the open-air museum by their owners during the first few weeks of the summer season. When the season ends, the cows, horses, goats, sheep and rabbits return to their original homes for the winter months. The hens and cockerels are purchased in spring and sold to interested parties in November. The animals owned by the museum are taken to winter stables in Brienzwiler and looked after by our in-house farm staff. Wherever possible, we use feed produced within our own grounds. Owing to the quantity and type of the feed, we need to purchase more for the winter months, as well as during the summer season. Our annual animal care bill is around CHF 150,000 – so why not sponsor an animal to ensure that the bucolic symphony of clucking, mooing and grunting can continue to be enjoyed at the museum during the coming season?"
Yes, she did catch the prey.
"Over 100 rural buildings from all over Switzerland can be discovered at the Open-Air Museum Ballenberg. Besides farmhouses, there are craftsmens’ houses, day laborers’ houses and numerous outbuildings, such as barns, granaries, earth cellars, bakehouses and drying kilns. Buildings are classified according to the region of origin and grouped into typical regional building groups."
People bring their own food to grill.
"A wide variety of building materials and structural designs can be found at the Open-Air Museum Ballenberg. Wood was used for timber constructions, post-and-beam constructions and half-timbering. Solid buildings were constructed using quarry stones, pebbles from rivers, cut stone and bricks. Wood can also be found in these buildings where it’s used for ceiling beams, floorboards and paneling. Limestones were fired and used as masonry mortar and plaster."
"At the Open-air Museum Ballenberg you can see how different roof coverings influence the form and shape of the historical buildings. The large, steeply-pitched thatched roofs ensure that water can quickly run off, which allows the thatch to dry. Flat-pitched shingle roofs made it possible to cover the roof with wooden shingles without using nails, only weighing them down with stones. The slate roofs and tiled roofs show the advantages of a non-combustible and longer-lasting building material which is why tile roofs became more and more common from the 19thcentury onward, displacing other roof coverings."
Even broken pottery was mended.
"The interiors of the dwellings and farmhouses show how indoor temperatures were skillfully handled. Living rooms were usually south facing, the tiled stoves were mostly placed in the middle of the house and so heated the parlor and the adjoining rooms. Stoking holes at the top of the tiled stove allowed the heat to rise up to the bedrooms on the first floor. The smokehouses were mainly open until under the roof, so that the smoke could rise and also be used for smoking items. Shutters were used in front of the windows – for the purpose of darkening the room, but also as another layer of insulation. In addition to hinged shutters, pull and drop shutters were used."
"A variety of old craft professions are still actively pursued today in the workshops of the Swiss Open-Air Museum Ballenberg. Basket-making, forging in the smithy, braiding, spinning, weaving and carving are just a few of the many crafts demonstrated daily."
"In 2018, the Year of Cultural Heritage, the Swiss Heritage Society awarded the Swiss Open-Air Museum the Schulthess Garden Prize in recognition of its varied accomplishments in the field of garden culture and landscape maintenance."
"With regards to the farm outbuildings, there are types of construction that hardly exist today, although in terms of their practical function some are being rediscovered. For example, cold cellars or earth cellars which have a relatively constant room temperature and are therefore suitable for storing vegetables, wine, grape must and milk. Many other types of building are used to preserve, store and recycle foodstuffs: drying ovens to dry fruit, the trester shed to recycle the waste from fruit pressing, granaries to store grain or cheese stores to mature hard cheeses."
"The Ballenberg Open-Air Museum is not only situated in the center of Switzerland but it is also in the middle of a forest. And this forest is more than mere decor. About half of the area of the open-air museum is forest land."
"People’s relationship with the forest was once literally one for life. Without the forest there would have been no heating, no furniture, no receptacles, no houses, no fences and no vehicles. From the cradle to the grave, the forest was the source of raw materials, and it also protected people from avalanches and rock falls. Conversely, exploitation of this resource and the replanting of trees shaped the forest and the cultivated landscape in general."
"Why not hop on our historic carousel, located just opposite the petting enclosure, for a ride? Enjoy all the fun of the fair: a delight for adults and children alike."
"The buildings at the Open-Air Museum Ballenberg were dismantled in various parts of Switzerland and rebuilt in the museum. In the process, the buildings were often restored to their original state of construction. The research project ‘Building documentation’ focuses on the buildings at their place of origin, examines the structural environment at their former site, the building and occupant history and translocation to the open-air museum."
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