Maarten Koning – Page 27 – The Swiss Spectator

The City of Culture Winterthur is back in all its Glory

Switzerland is a country of museums, art and culture. Although the ancient Confederation (Eidgenossenschaft) of cantons did not have a “Golden Age” of art, artistic achievements are omnipresent.

Not only its food products (Maggi, Knorr, Muesli, chocolate, cheese, among others), architecture, graffiti, broderies and other textiles, watches, shoes, ceramics, or hair combs are world-famous, but also generations of art collectors and scholars of the history of art.

It is no coincidence that the first museum, even if this name was unknown at the time, was founded in Basel in 1671. The combination of cosmopolitan merchants, manufacturers, and scientists, as well as a widespread system and mentality of mecenate, are at the heart of today’s cultural scene.

Vincent van Gogh, Le Café de nuit à Arles, 1888. Collection: Kunst Museum Winterthur, Hahnloser/Jaeggli Stiftung

It also applies to the city of Winterthur (Canton of Zurich). On 23 March, the Kunst Museum Winterthur celebrated the long-awaited return of the collection of Hedy Bühler (1873-1952) and Arthur Hahnloser (1870-1936) to the Villa Flora.

The couple from Winterthur bought directly from artists’ studios after 1907, initially works by Giovanni Giacometti, then Ferdinand Hodler and from 1908 onwards from artists and art dealers in Paris and Amsterdam. They bought the Van Goghs at auctions in Amsterdam.

Parisian avant-garde artists regularly travelled to Winterthur and visited the couple’s home, Villa Flora. Established in 1980, the Hahnloser/Jaeggli Foundation (Stiftung) comprises about 400 works. After years of renovation, the masterpieces are back home in the villa.

The exhibition Bienvenue! shows the rise of French Modernism from Impressionism and Post-Impressionism to representatives of the Nabi group of artists and the so-called Fauves.

Edouard Manet, Amazone, 1882. Collection: Kunst Museum Winterthur, Hahnloser/Jaeggli Stiftung

Works by Vincent van Gogh, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, Édouard Manet and Auguste Renoir and groups of works by their Parisian artist friends around Pierre Bonnard, Félix Vallotton, Odilon Redon and Henri Matisse are presented. Sculptures by Auguste Rodin, Aristide Maillol and other sculptures complete the collection.

The Kunststadt Winterthur (in addition to the Kunst Museum Winterthur, especially the Oskar Reinhart collection “am Römerholz“) shines again in all its glory!

View of the exhibition ‘Bienvenue!’. Collection and Photo: Kunst Museum Winterthur, Hahnloser/Jaeggli Stiftung

Sissach and its Dynasties and Castles

Sissach (canton Basel-Landschaft) on the Diegterbach is a village with a Celtic and Roman past. The oldest church in Sissach was built around 620, during the period of Merovingian rule. These Christian Franks were the successors of the pagan Alemanni.

The Diegterbach

Graves from this era have also been found. After the Merovingians came successively, the Carolingians, the Second Burgundian Kingdom (888-1032), the Holy Roman Empire, and regional and local rulers.

The present-day reformed church

The village appears for the first time in documents under the name Sissaho in 1226. It was an important regional centre because of its location on the traffic routes to the passes of the Schaffmatt and the Unterer Hauenstein.

For this reason, the dynasties of the Eptinger, Homberger, Frohburger, Thiersteiner and Habsburger, as well as the Schöntal monastery, owned land and castles in this area for centuries, including the (vanished) castles of Burgenrain, Sissacher Fluh and Bischofstein. Bischofstein was built by the Eptinger around 1250.

However, the 1356 earthquake destroyed this complex, which was not inhabited afterwards. The City of Basel acquired the area, including Sissach, in 1456. Sissach followed Basel in the Reformation in 1529.

One of Sissach’s landmarks is Ebenrain Castle. This late-baroque castle was built in 1775 by the Basel silk trader and manufacturer Martin Bachofen-Heitz (1727-1814). The architect was Niklaus Sprüngli (1725-1802).

Jakob Probst (1880-1954), Schwörender, Ebenrain Castle

The castle was a summer and hunting residence with a Baroque garden on the north side, which was later changed into an English garden, and a Lindenallee on the south side. The Canton of Basel-Landschaft acquired Schloss Ebenrain in 1951. The canton uses it for representative occasions and events.

(Source and further information: Gemeinde Sissach; Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz, Sissach)

Impressions of Sissach

Philosophy and an arbitration case in the Eigenthal at the foot of Pilatus

Nowadays, many doctors prescribe walks in nature instead of medication or recommend a hike. The beneficial effects may be even more significant if a hike begins unexpectedly in a philosophically designed environment. This is even more true if mythical mountains, waterfalls, streams, and wooded hills form the snowy landscape.

The Eigenthal Even mythical mountains are entitled to privacy and sometimes shroud themselves in clouds. The Pilatus chooses its days and moments.

Only a few restaurants welcome guests with a history of philosophy and celebrities from ancient times to the present. As we know, almost every village in Switzerland has cultural, historical, or natural peculiarities.

Schwarzenberg

However, coffee with gipfeli under the watchful eyes of Socrates, Copernicus, Churchill or the Pilatus is exceptional. On the outskirts of the village of Schwarzenberg (canton of Lucerne), however, a Hotel-Bildungszentrum complex links the pleasant with the useful.

The village along the Rümlig stream lies at an altitude of 831 metres in the Eigenthal at the foot of the Pilatus. Around 10,000 years ago, the temperature sharply rose, and the Rümlig glacier in the valley turned into a lake. This lake silted up in the following millennia, and humans started cultivating the valley.

The Rümlig stream

Eigenthal first appears in a document from 1287 under the name Oegenthal. Murbach Monastery in Lucerne owned it for centuries, and eventually, the city of Lucerne acquired the area.

From 1850 onwards, the English introduced mountaineering and winter sports to many places in Switzerland. However, Eigenthal’s development into a renowned winter sports resort is ‘homemade’.

Residents of Lucerne founded the Lucerne Ski Club in 1903, and the Eigenthal and Pilatus were the favourite destinations. Residents of Schwarzenberg founded the Schwarzenberg ski club in 1925. In 1943, some members split off and called themselves Ski Club Eigenthal.

The old club Schwarzenberg changed its name to Ski Club Malters because most of its members lived in this municipality. Eigenthal then wanted the name Ski Club Schwarzenberg back, but Ski Club Malters did not allow it.

It led to a unique case that led to the highest level of the national ski federation. After a four-year (!) procedure, an arbitral tribunal decided that the new club Malters had wrongfully stopped the (re)use of the name Schwarzenberg.

This club even had to pay high damages. Socrates had not yet arrived in the valley. Today, the Schwarzenberg and Malters ski clubs are back on ‘speaking terms’ and organise annual competitions and meetings.

Eigenthal even had its ski jump, die ‘Grosse Pilatusschanze,’ until 1949. Moreover, several national cross-country skier championships, ’50-km-Dauerlauf, ‘ took place in Eigenthal from 1929 to 1966.

An astronomer in the Eigenthal

The valley not only hosts facilities for summer and winter sports. As is well known, ‘light pollution’ in the mountains is considerably lower than in urban areas. Consequently, astronomers often envision a bright universe, and Eigenthal offers this opportunity.

The road to the Pilatus and its mountain range offers views of the city of Lucerne, the Reuss, Lake Lucerne, the Rigi, and the Bürgenstock, including the Swiss livestock.

The Pilatus and the Rigi also make impressive appearances in Lucerne. Unsurprisingly, the greatest composers felt at home in this area: Richard Wagner (1813-1883) on one side of the shore and Sergei Rachmaninoff (1843-1943) on the other side of the lake.