A chalet can be anything, even a post office (the Swiss village of Lumbrein, canton Graubünden)
However, as Swissinfo.ch writes, today most of the architectural projects on which such chalets are built in Switzerland are the work of foreign architects, primarily German. Using Alpine idyll as a source of creative inspiration, they are the ones largely responsible today for the appearance of 'real Swiss resorts'.
Such a conclusion, at least, is contained in a doctoral dissertation recently defended by Daniel Stockhammer at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH Zurich). In his work, in particular, it is stated that houses and building projects 'in the Swiss style' are currently usually implemented by foreign architectural companies and firms, drawing on the heritage of the 18th and 19th centuries, when the European elite, after seeing the Alps and reading Rousseau, suddenly began to feel a burning desire to touch 'real nature' and feel, even for a moment, like a 'primordial man' from the novels of the Genevan philosopher and supporter of the idea of 'simplification'.
'The Swiss style existed abroad even before it seeped back into the territory of the Confederation in the form of specific building standards and regulations,' writes Daniel Stockhammer in the introduction to his dissertation. The impetus for the spread of 'real Alpine chalets' throughout Switzerland was the rapidly developing modern tourism industry in Switzerland in the 19th century.
Swiss construction contractors tried to anticipate the wishes of foreign guests, and therefore implemented on Swiss soil a foreign idea of what a 'real Swiss house' should look like, which, in turn, was absorbed by local culture and at a certain stage truly became that. The eternal question of which came first, the chicken or the egg, will apparently remain unanswered.
Samuel JABER.
Translated by Igor PETROV.