Monumental villages of Baselbiet

12 August 2021

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, the co-called Baselbieter Wohnhäuser.

The usual plan was the two-room concept with a kitchen and living and sleeping area, 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 is sometimes still a barn with a threshing floor and a stable 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).