Ballenberg open-air museum
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.jpg) Half-timbered house in the open-air museum, with the Alps in the background |
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| Data | |
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| place | Hofstetten near Brienz |
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| opening | 1978 |
| Website | |
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The Ballenberg Open-Air Museum is an open-air museum in Hofstetten near Brienz in the Bernese Oberland in Switzerland. It shows 109 (2018) original historical buildings from all parts of Switzerland, local farm animals, original gardens and fields. Traditional handicrafts are shown in demonstrations. The Ballenberg course center is affiliated . The Ballenberg Country Theater performs on a play in a historic setting every summer.
location
The area of the 66 hectare open-air museum Ballenberg is located in the district of Hofstetten near Brienz between Brienz and Meiringen above the Aare valley in the Bernese Oberland. It is located on the Ballenberg of the same name at altitudes between 640 and 700 m above sea level. M. and is surrounded by high mountains, which are often snow-covered even in summer. Not far away are Lake Brienz and the Brienzer Rothorn , as well as the Brünig Pass and the Reichenbach Falls . The west entrance ⊙ is near Hofstetten bei Brienz, the east entrance ⊙ with the adjoining chocolate shop near Brienzwiler . On the museum grounds, forest and fields alternate with boulders made of lime. The Karstsee Wyssesee is located 200 meters southeast of the western entrance and only occurs periodically, as its water can partially seep through subterranean crevices in summer.
history
With the opening of the Skansen Museum near Stockholm in 1891, today's open-air museums were born. Twenty years after Skansen was founded, there were around 20 major open-air museums in Northern Europe. However, the great boom of this type of museum took place between the 1950s and 1970s, when innumerable institutions of this kind, including the first industrial museums and non-European open-air museums, were founded.
At the time of the first founding in Scandinavia, approaches for the establishment of an open-air museum were also emerging in Switzerland. But neither the plans for a “medieval Swiss town” at the Bernisches Historisches Museum nor the discussions about whether the Swiss National Museum in Zurich should be supplemented by rural buildings continued. It was not until 1963 that the Federal Council set up an expert commission to examine the creation of a national open-air museum more closely. Compared to other locations, the Ballenberg site was most convincing.
In 1978 the Swiss open-air museum Ballenberg opened its doors. After 16 museum objects were presented at the opening, two years later there were already 25 and in 1985 61 buildings. Today there are over 100 residential and auxiliary buildings on the Ballenberg. The research work of the “Farmhouse Research Campaign in Switzerland” serves as the basis for the scientific concept of the Ballenberg Open Air Museum. They enable a targeted, broad-based selection of the most important characteristic house, farm and settlement forms in Switzerland.
The open-air museum is an important cultural, scientific and tourist institution that annually attracts around 250,000 visitors from all over the world. With almost 200 employees that the museum employs during the season from mid-April to the end of October, it is also one of the most important employers in the region.
In 2003 the largest building to date, the manor from Novazzano TI (851) with 50 rooms and an osteria from the 13th to 19th centuries, was inaugurated.
The currently newest building on the Ballenberg was inaugurated in July 2017: The brick factory from Péry (141, Swiss Jura) ⊙ dates back to 1763. The museum plans to enable demonstrations of brick production (brick firing) in the next few years.
The Ballenberg is 80 percent financed from the entrance fees, which is why the open-air museum depends on many visitors. In 2009 over 300,000 visitors came, in 2017 it was just under 200,000, which led to a loss. From 2018, the Ballenberg will receive more than one million francs per year from the canton of Bern. The Ballenberg wants to introduce more attractions ( Foxtrail Ballenberg etc.) also for the youth (school trips etc.).
Museum grounds
In the exhibition area of the open-air museum, which opened in 1978, you can find over 100 original, centuries-old buildings from all parts of Switzerland , 250 farm animals, and thus all native species (especially breeds threatened with extinction), as well as historical useful plants (vegetables, herbs, cereals).
There are also demonstrations of traditional handicrafts, customs and special events, which give an insight into former life.
The following handicrafts and trades are demonstrated: baking, fountain roe, filoching, frivolite , goldsmithing, resin burning , wood carving, hat making, cheese, lime burning , lace making, cooking, charcoal making, basket weaving, grinding, oil presses, trimmings , saws (in the historic sawmill), saddlers , Clapboard, forging, chocolate making , shoemaking, chip boxes, spinning, embroidery, pottery, watchmaking, weaving, weiskuefers , as well as the commissioning of two fully functional water mills, both of which are located in the Valais group .
The visitors themselves can also be active in some places in the museum. B. Compare the hardness of different types of wood and touch everything in the house (farmhouse from Oberentfelden AG) and try it out. The museum is supported by a private foundation established in 1968 with the aim of collecting, researching, preserving and conveying traditional rural buildings and their typical living and working facilities from all parts of Switzerland.
The exhibition area is divided into different regions of Switzerland. These include the following areas (as of 2017):
| module | Number of houses | oldest building | Image of the building |
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| Alpine farming | 14 buildings | 1351 Sennhütte, Axalp (1520) ⊙ |
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| Grisons | 1 building | 1212 Hay barn, Vals (1780) ⊙ |
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| Bernese Mittelland | 18 buildings | 322 Granary, Kiesen (1685) ⊙ |
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| Bernese Oberland | 12 buildings | 1021 House, Matten (1570) ⊙ |
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| Central Switzerland | 11 buildings | 751 house, Schwyz (1336) ⊙ |
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| Eastern Switzerland | 3 buildings | 931 House, Wattwil (16th century) ⊙ |
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| Ticino | 10 buildings | 851 Manor, Novazzano (13th – 19th centuries) ⊙ |
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| Valais | 6 buildings | 1111 House, Blatten (1568) ⊙ |
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| Swiss Jura | 5 buildings | 111 farmhouse, La Chaux-de-Fonds (1617) ⊙ |
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| Eastern Central Plateau | 14 buildings | 642 Granary, Lindau (1534) ⊙ |
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| Western Switzerland | 9 buildings | 512 Granary, Heitenried (1652) ⊙ |
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| Central plateau | 4 buildings | 221 Farmhouse, Oberentfelden (1609) ⊙ |
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| Fire floor | 2 experience points | 491 Limekiln, 492 resin kiln, charcoal kilns ⊙ |
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See also
- List of European open air museums
- List of cultural assets in Brienzwiler
- List of cultural assets in Hofstetten near Brienz
literature
- Max Gschwend, Rudolf Hunziker (photos): Ballenberg . AT, Aarau 1988, ISBN 3-85502-322-0 .
- Edwin Huwyler, Marcus Gyger and Christian Perret (Photos): Ballenberg Open Air Museum: The Experience . Haupt, Bern / Stuttgart / Vienna 2008, ISBN 978-3-258-07286-9 .
- Urs Ritschard: Ballenberg Ob Brienz. Weber-Verlag, Thun 2019, ISBN 978-3-03818-207-8 .
Web links
- Anne-Marie Dubler : Ballenberg. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
- Official website of the Ballenberg Open Air Museum
- Pictures from the open-air museum Ballenberg
Individual evidence
- ↑ Swiss farmhouse research
- ^ Ballenberg: House building like in 1800 on swissinfo.ch
- ^ Ballenberg: Manor from Novazzano
- ^ Ballenberg: brickworks from Péry BE
- ↑ Ballenberg Open Air Museum. The Desperate Search for Visitors , SRF April 4, 2018, accessed June 14, 2019