1021 – Dwelling from Matten, Berne, around 1570/2007
In cooperation with the Ministry of Building Monuments and a group associated with the architect Patrick Thurston, the Ballenberg Open-Air Museum took the bold step of modernising the old house.
No Birth Certificate
The date of construction is absent on most ancient buildings, as it is on this one from Matten, near Interlaken. For a long time we could only estimate its age. In recent years the science of dendrochronology (analysing tree growth rings) has advanced decisively. Applied to this house, it revealed the date when the trees the house was built from were felled – 1570!
Part of a Group
The cellar rooms are in the foundation space, upon which rests a two-storey block timber structure. The front facade displays continuous decorative bands of furrowed friezes, upward-swinging shutters and beam ends coped out with decorative patterns. A spacious parlour and a smoke kitchen are in the lower storey, the latter with an open hearth for cooking and making cheese. A gallery provides access to the chambers in the upper storey.
The dwelling was part of a farmstead which in recent generations concentrated on animal husbandry. The farm also comprised barns, a bake oven, granaries and Maiensäss buildings (spring camps). The farm could only function with all of these buildings in union.
Bridge to the Modern Age
An ambitious project is drawing the attention of friends of architecture: in cooperation with the Ministry of Building Monuments and a group associated with the architect Patrick Thurston, the Ballenberg Open-Air Museum took the bold step of modernising the old house. The envelope of the building attains the Swiss standard “Minergy”. On the outside only a modern addition is visible at the rear. On the inside new elements were introduced into the old rooms, sort of a house within a house. In the Bernese Oberland alone there are 500 houses which need this kind of renovation and which can profit from ideas in the house from Matten.
Vitra Exhibition, Dwelling from Matten
Ballenberg
Swiss Open-Air Museum
Museumsstrasse 100
CH-3858 Hofstetten bei Brienz
Opening hours
10 April to 2 November 2025
10 am to 5 pm daily
