No. 551
The multi-purpose house from Lancy is one of the largest and most elaborate buildings in the Museum. Its reconstruction represents a new departure in the cultivation of our rural heritage. The experiment with the “Ferme Guillierme-Pastori”, as the building is called after its last owners, is as fascinating for experts as it is for visitors to the
Museum.

For the first time at the Museum, an attempt has been made not to reconstruct a farmhouse in an earlier state, but to reproduce and make visible, almost as in a speeded-up film, all the changes that have taken place over former centuries. The farmhouse from Lancy provides fascinating insight into the history of building materials and the historical processes, through which successive new types of farmhouses have evolved.
Not all farmhouses can serve as models for this ambitious instructional programme. However, this large multi-purpose house, which had to make way for the construction of a new tram depot in Lancy, lends itself ideally to experimentation.
The building history can be divided into three separate construction phases. Each of these phases corresponds to a characteristic period in the economic history of the Canton of Geneva. By determining the age of the wooden parts, three exact
dates of construction and alteration could be esta-blished.
In 1762, the Chaulet family built a press-house in the vineyard located not far from the village of Lancy. The four stone walls were covered by a flat pantiled roof. In 1788 Joseph Guillierme pur-chased the vineyard and enlarged the press-house into a farmhouse. After an adventurous career as a soldier, he now turned his hand to farming.

The farmhouse was built in three phases which reflect three different periods of agricultural history. The wine grower’s press-house became a multi-purpose building and, a generation later, this farmhouse became the work building of an estate.

The building underwent a further enlargement around 1820. The farmhouse was converted into a large work building that could house some fifty head of cattle in two long stalls. The tenant farmer was housed in the small living quarters, while the house of the patrician owner was located at a distance.
Widely differing materials were used for each of these construction phases. The press-house dating from 1762 was still built mainly with local materials. For the enlargement of 1796 and, particularly for the dovecote, the material used was stone from the chateau of Saconnex, which was demolished around that time. Mediaeval arrow-slits were used for ventilation and to allow the birds to enter and leave.
The walls from the extension of 1820 are built partly of puddled clay and chaff. Explanations of the different materials and construction techniques are provided throughout the house.
Living and working conditions in the early 19th century seem to have been very modest. The farmhouse has no parlour, only a kitchen used as a parlour, as is customary in the Mediterranean area. It is heated by an open-hearth fireplace. The rooms on the upper floor are simple and the large cow stalls were constructed for maximum efficiency. One feels that the farmer was producing almost exclusively for the market. Behind the house is a walled yard into which the cattle could be taken out.

Joseph Guillierme:
soldier and gardener
Joseph Guillierme (1745–1826), the building
owner of the Lancy farmhouse, was born at Saint-Génix near Chambéry in 1745. It is presumed that the Sardinian authorities sent him for vocational training in fruit cultivation to Pomerania. His height of over two metres had serious consequences for him. He was forcibly recruited into the honour guard of the King of Prussia and was allowed to return home only after extensive diplomatic efforts.
Around 1776, he travelled to The Hague and Paris in order to complete his training, after which he took over a farm near Frangy. In 1788 he married and settled on the estate of “Les Avanchis”, to which our house from Lancy belonged. His estate was transferred from one state to another five times during the turmoil at the end of the 18th century until it finally became a part of the Canton of Geneva.