Obergommerhaus
The Obergommerhaus is a type of house in the Goms district in Upper Valais . It is the archetype of the Walser house , which was spread by the emigrated Walsers in the rest of Switzerland , Liechtenstein as well as in the Kleinwalsertal and Grosswalsertal . The construction techniques were taken from Upper Valais and the construction methods were adapted to the local conditions in the new living spaces.
General characteristics of the residential building
The Obergommerhaus is a high-walled knitted structure made with squared timber from larch wood, which is divided into a front and rear building with a partition wall and rests on a wall floor painted white. Unclad (not edged) larch wood, which can dry again and again, becomes harder and more weatherproof with age and can be preserved for 500 years and more. The squared timbers were worked with the ax until recently. The vernuteten Squares of the multi-storey building block are at the end by interleaved intersection ( Gwätt, of Bet connected, connect '). The broken stone wall was used as a cellar and wood room and is now often used as living space. The wall in the kitchen corner can be pulled up to the eaves because of the risk of fire. Tuff-framed arched doors are seldom set into the walls.
The house has a flat gable roof with a longitudinal ridge and is covered with 60 cm long larch shingles. The longitudinal ridge is additionally supported by the raised partition between the front and rear buildings.
The house stands out on the gable front through the construction of the originally small windows and their arrangement, as well as on the eaves side through the arbours ( Löiben ) raised under the roof , which are provided with an outside staircase. In the original construction, the windows have strong window mullions on both sides, which are grooved at the top and bottom with the beams and with their groove comb on the back with the wall beams. Because the wood warped long after construction, the vertical elements, including the windows with their vertical window posts, were kept as small as possible. So that enough light could still enter, rows of several windows were built.
The construction of the chimneys and ridge posts as well as the decorations of the gable purlin consoles, the protective consoles and friezes are typical of the time and have changed over the centuries. They give an indication of the approximate age of the houses. The age of the wood, which is normally built after one year of storage, can be determined exactly to the year using dendrochronology .
The friezes are attached as carved wooden bands on the lintel above the window or on the breast beam under the window. The protruding friezes serve for weather protection by draining the rainwater.
- 15th century: Smooth comb frieze
- 16th century: notched groove frieze, funnel-groove frieze, groove frieze
- 17th century: Console frieze, cube frieze, wolf tooth / cube frieze
- 18th century: Horseshoe frieze, wolf tooth / diamond, pair of grooves, tendril frieze, wave frieze
Frieze motifs, Kapuzinerhaus Ernen 1511
Protective consoles with coat of arms, Ernen 1584
Grooved frieze, wedge arch on Stadel 1617
Grooved frieze, decorated protective brackets 1617
Residential buildings
«Heidenhaus», 15th century
"Heidenhäuser" ( Heidehüs ) are those houses in many regions that were assumed to date from pre-Christian times. They are lower because they are built without a ridge chamber and can be relatively long together with an attached hay barn.
The most striking feature are the two approximately two meter long ridge posts ( stand studs ) in the gable facade at the front and back of the house. Because of the relief-like cross on the stand, they are called Heidenkreuz ( Heidechriz ). They are grooved in the block wall to support the ridge. A peg connects the ridge purlins with the stud stud for longitudinal stability. The side grooves are connected to the horizontal beams of the gable wall to prevent the gable wall from bulging. For anchoring downwards, the stud stud overlaps the beam running through the bottom. On the stand bar you can find decorations next to the heather cross. "Heidenhäuser" have no friezes.
As a specialty of Goms, the "Heidenhaus" had an open smoke kitchen until after 1600 , above which a saddle-shaped chimney (wooden ceiling) was installed, which collected the smoke rising from the stove ( Härdstock ) and into the back wall via a beamed fireplace ( beam headed fireplace ) Free peel off. The strong beam of the beam chimney was grooved on the underside and ran at the ceiling height of the arbor floor above the kitchen room or under the roof gable to the rear through the house wall. The last beam chimney system was demolished in 2002 in the Adolf Guntern House (built after 1409) in Mühlebach .
The gable purlin consoles are wall-like projections on both sides of the house front, which are provided with drip motifs in the Heidenhäuser. Two huge stud posts form the door stop at the entrance, support the block wall and prevent the wall from breaking out. A hatch above the front door lets light into the dark hallway. The originally 40 cm high windows were later enlarged to get more light.
The “Heidenhaus” consists of the wall base, a residential floor, the arbor floor ( Löbe floor ) and the screed. The living floor is divided into a chamber ( Chammere ) and living room at the front building and a kitchen and an adjoining room ( Stubji ) at the rear building . The fixed furniture in the living room includes the Giltstein stove , chests, table and house crucifix. The "Heidenhaus" is neither inscribed nor dated and has hardly any decorations.
Around 1500 a firstbug was introduced instead of the Ständerstuds ( Chrizgwätt ). This made the gabled house out of the Heidenhaus . The ridge bows were decorated with St. Andrew's crosses and bars.
Pagan cross
Drip consoles, Heidenhaus Reckingen
Gabled house with firstbug and paw crosses, stone house / Ernen
Rauchküche , Jooshaus 1558, Valendas
Vorschutz- or Renaissance house, 1530 to 1630
The Vorschutzhaus got its name because its residential wing towers over the chamber floor by up to fifty centimeters. It does not lie on beams, but on consoles with coats of arms and other decorations (initials of the builder, building number, ax, etc.). Single or double-shaped keel arches are attached between the consoles and those with a cross on the tip above the windows.
The chamber floor is used as a workshop or storage room. In the floor under the chamber floor is the wall cellar, which can be reached via a staircase and which served as a cooling room. The year of construction is attached to the gable of the protective houses, sometimes the initials of the builder can also be found there. The gable wall is often decorated with keel arches or paw crosses. At the beginning of the 16th century, the first protruding friezes were installed as wall protection and to drain off rainwater, which were initially decorated as a comb frieze and later as a groove frieze. With the gable purlin consoles, the drip motifs have been replaced by the Rosskopf consoles.
At the end of the 17th century, stepped chimneys were built on the eaves or rear of the house instead of beam chimneys.
Rosskopf console from 1435, Mühlebach
Support beam (Dielbaum) of the ceiling with inscription 1692, Steinhaus / Ernen
Room with stove, Jooshaus
Oven, Jooshaus
Baroque house, from 1630
The baroque house brought the wall decorations to bloom: console and cube frieze, cube frieze with wolf tooth, arrow tail, diamond and wave frieze etc. and often in different combinations. The 18th century brought ornamental contoured window coverings, which served as sliding frames for the elevator shutters in row windows. The outside windows had shutters and the middle windows had shutters. The block wall was full of cladding and the small sprouting of the windows was abandoned. In the second half of the 20th century, the restoration went back to smaller windows with the historical and thermally better window posts and fewer decorations.
From the 19th century onwards, tulip motifs were also used for the gable-purlin consoles in addition to the Rosskopf consoles.
In the 18th century, instead of the built-on chimney, an internal chimney was installed on the partition wall between the front and rear buildings, which combined the kitchen stove and room heating. It had a chimney hood over the open stone fireplace. In the 19th century the internal fireplace was replaced by the iron stove.
Utility buildings
Gommerstadel
The three-part barn made of fir wood serves on the one hand as a storage room (grain, wheat, barley, field peas, beans, flax, hemp, clothes, writings) and on the other hand for processing ( threshing ) the crops in the threshing floor. The substructure used as a workshop or for small animals lies on a ground-high foundation and consists of two chambers, each with a door. The intermediate zone consists of pillars and round stone slabs ( tarpaulins , miischplatta ), which serve as supports for the superstructure and are intended to keep the mice ( miischi ) from the supplies. The barn legs ( barn tarpaulin ) are grooved under the barn legs with dovetail combs in the square bar ( sleeping boom ).
The multi-storey superstructure has one door (sometimes up to four, or one door per owner) to the threshing floor ( barn walkway ) and belongs to several owners. The floors are divided accordingly with rafters and shops. The pulses are stored on the top floor. In the less labor-intensive winter time, the sheaves were threshed on the threshing floor before they were stored on the floors. The threshing floor ( Te ) and the rooms on both sides ( Techäste ) have a floor made of grooved fir wood (12 × 12 × 6 cm) so that the grain does not seep through. The walls of the threshing floor consist of 6 cm thick and 70 cm high shutters, the ends of which are grooved in a stud . The floors consist of raw slats with spaces in between to ventilate the sheaves. The two small windows with fly screens at the top of the barn also serve the same purpose.
Above the door of the town hall there is a wall protection on beams, which serves as a stand on the inside to get to the upper floors ( briganes ). The barn roof consists of 60 cm long shingles and is a touch roof, on which the shingles were not previously nailed, but held in place with slats and stones. Access to the barn legs ( barn tarpaulin ) is via a wooden staircase, from there you have to climb onto the barn pedestal (extension of the tennis floor) in front of the tent door. The barn walls are supported by a vertical, pincer-like stiffening structure, in which the elongated capstans are driven through 60 cm long staples ( Kloven ).
Memory ( Spycher )
The storeroom is constructed in the same way as the barn and is also used to store the crops, but is smaller and has an arcade instead of the threshing floor and a strong protective barrier. It has no ventilation windows. Tools and handcarts are supplied in the substructure. In the case of three-storey stores, a wooden staircase on the eaves wall leads to the doors on the upper floor. Inside there are boxes for storing the crops after threshing, as well as cheese rakes and meat hooks for drying the fresh products.
Hay barn ( Gadä )
The two-storey hay barn (also known as the stable barn) is the most common utility building in Goms. It consists of the lower stable level for the animals and the attached barn for the hay. The stable is mostly made of larch wood because it is more stressed by the animals than the barn. The stable is divided into compartments ( Unner slaughter ), each with space for two cows. The stable entrance consists of two mighty stud posts into which the side walls are grooved. On both sides of the stable door, a wooden staircase leads to the small platform in front of the two barn entrances ( Ezporten ), over which the cattle feed is fetched. The laying of the hay takes place via one or two wood throws ( Lischportä ) on the back of the hay barn.
Museums
- Alt- Reckingen-Gluringen cooperative : old sawmill, Büchhüs, bakery, bell foundry.
- Ecomuseum Ammern, Blitzingen : renovated hamlet as an open-air museum.
- Bodmen local history museum, Blitzingen: objects from pre-industrial life: agriculture, handicrafts.
- Jost-Sigristen-Museum, Ernen : culture of aristocratic Valais, rural Valais.
- Regional museum Binn , Schmiedigenhäusern: minerals, Graeser-Andenmatten Foundation - ethnology, archeology.
- Nagelsbalmen Alpine Museum, Riederalp : multi-tier alpine farming in Valais.
literature
- Volkmar Schmid: We Walser. Brig 2002.
- Walter Ruppen: Untergoms . In: Society for Swiss Art History (Ed.): Art Monuments of Switzerland . tape 67 . Birkhäuser Verlag, Basel 1979, ISBN 3-7643-1080-4 , p. 120-138 .
- Walter Ruppen: The Obergommer House. (Swiss Art Guide, No. 163). Ed. Society for Swiss Art History GSK. Bern 1974, ISBN 978-3-85782-163-9 .
- Roland Flückiger-Seiler and Benno Mutter: Ernen and surroundings. In: Schweizerische Kunstführer GSK, Volume 581/582, Bern 1995, ISBN 3-85782-581-2 .
- Roland Flückiger-Seiler, Paul Niggeli, Martin Schmidhalter: Mühlebach. A tour of the historic village. The village with the oldest compact wooden village center in Switzerland. Published by: Mühlebach municipality, second edition 2009.
- Odilo Schmidt, Stephan Schmidt: Reckingen-Gluringen in Goms. Village tour. Genossenschaft Alt Reckingen-Gluringen (Ed.), Verlag regional newspaper Aletsch Goms, Fiesch 2008.
- Münster culture trail . Cultural landscape of Münster-Geschinen (ed.), Münster-Geschinen
Web links
- Walser house
- Virtual Walser Museum: Obergommerhaus
- Mühlebach: A tour through the historic village with the oldest compact wooden village center in Switzerland (information brochure)
- Binntal Landscape Park: Village tour and Ernen cultural assets (information brochure)
- Walser Museum: Geschinen cultural guide
- Anton Carlen: Between two bridges. The parish of Ernen, its old houses and their former residents, 1963
Individual evidence
- ↑ Odilo Schmidt, Stephan Schmidt: Reckingen-Gluringen in Goms. Village tour. Genossenschaft Alt Reckingen-Gluringen (Ed.), Verlag regional newspaper Aletsch Goms, Fiesch 2008
- ^ Swiss homeland security: Gon-Hüs in Niederwald VS with an old Giltstein stove
- ^ Roland Flückiger-Seiler, Paul Niggeli, Martin Schmidhalter: Mühlebach. A tour of the historic village. The village with the oldest compact wooden village center in Switzerland. Published by: Mühlebach municipality, second edition 2009.
- ↑ Alt-Reckingen-Gluringen cooperative
- ^ Ecomuseum Ammern
- ↑ Bodmen Local History Museum
- ^ Jost Sigristen Museum
- ↑ Binn Regional Museum
- ↑ Nagelsbalmen Alpine Museum