Research projects
Information on current and past research projects at the Open-Air Museum Ballenberg.
Living, building and doing business in rural Switzerland – "People and Homes" research project
How did people use to live in the countryside? Which people made up a household? What did they live off? Why did people decide to build a new house or to convert one? Who had the right and the means to do this?
The Swiss Open-Air Museum and other research institutions have long been interested in these and other questions, even as the landscape and agriculture have been changing rapidly and many old farmhouses have already been demolished. However, these questions have not yet all been answered.
The ‘People and Homes’ research project takes a new perspective and uses the latest research methods to explore the reality of life for earlier generations in the countryside. The focus is on the stories of selected houses in the Ballenberg Open-Air Museum and their inhabitants. The project examines interconnections related to construction, changes in economic practices and housing conditions, and other changes. Key topics of interest are the interdependencies and external influences – such as climate change, disease and wars – that triggered economic, social and cultural upheavals. The houses, the people, the material culture and nature itself are recognised as actors with their own ability to affect their surroundings, and their interactions are examined.
The project team combines approaches from architectural history, social and economic history, and cultural anthropology, and works closely with genealogists, architectural archaeologists, economic and social history researchers and local historical associations, and is also involving a wider range of people within the framework of citizen science. The data collected will be made publicly available in a database.
"People and Homes" research project
Living, building and doing business in rural Switzerland
Financing: SNSF (project number 189398)
Duration: 01/06/2020 – 31/05/2024
Team
- Professor Walter Leimgruber, Professor of Cultural Anthropology and European Ethnology at the University of Basel: principal applicant
- Professor Marion Sauter, architect and art historian, Professor of Cultural Theory at Bern University of Applied Sciences (Architecture, Wood and Civil Engineering): applicant
- Beatrice Tobler, cultural researcher lic. phil., Head of Science at the Ballenberg Open-Air Museum: project partner
- Dr Kurt Münger, chemist, President of the Swiss Society for Genealogical Studies (SSGS) and member of various historical societies in eastern Switzerland: project partner
- Uolf Candrian, cultural researcher MA, University of Zurich: doctoral student, University of Basel
- Linda Imhof, art and architectural historian lic. phil., University of Zurich: doctoral student, Bern University of Applied Sciences
- Stefan Kunz, architect MA FHZ SIA, Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts: doctoral student, Bern University of Applied Sciences
- Dr Irene Marti, social anthropologist, University of Neuchâtel: postdoc, University of Basel
- Oliver Rendu, historian and archaeologist MA, University of Lausanne: doctoral student, University of Lausanne
Ballenberg
Swiss Open-Air Museum
Museumsstrasse 100
CH-3858 Hofstetten bei Brienz
Opening hours
6 April to 29 October 2023
10 am to 5 pm daily
