A pair of grain storage houses from the Bernese Midlands. The building in the foreground dates from 1760 and that in the background from 1685.

Chalet Week continues today with a look at historic examples of these ubiquitous structures.

Last Summer, I spent two weeks in Switzerland with my wife, who was here on business. During the day, when my wife was at work, I drove around the countryside, photographing anything that didn't move: fields, mountains, buildings, towns. I had never experienced anything quite like it. Ancient villages with incredible, old buildings were around every bend in the road. It was a wonderful experience. It was also almost entirely free of chalets.

Switzerland is roughly one third the size of Ohio -- small, but not as tiny as Lichtenstein. Or Monaco. Or Delaware. In spite of being area-lly challenged, it contains a surprising degree of regional diversity. It begins, of course, with the languages. In most of the country's 26 cantons, German is the official language. French is spoken in several cantons while several others are officially bilingual. In Ticino, the canton bordering Italy, Italian is la lingua ufficiale. It is a confusing situation with which the Swiss seem entirely at ease. By comparison, a little regional architectural identity isn't surprising, even in so small a country.

In Southwestern Switzerland, north of Geneva, the predominate building mode is masonry. The buildings are stout, built like fortresses. Many are hundreds of years old and still have hundreds of years to give. They are colorful and beautiful and decidedly un-chalet-like. Since that was the only part of Switzerland in which I had spent significant time, I wondered if the chalet form was still relevant.


A house, originally built in 1776 in Brienz in the Bernese Oberland, not far from the museum site.

During the last days of 2009, my wife, our sons and I moved to Switzerland. As a result of living here for seven months and experiencing other parts of the country, I can report that the chalet is not only relevant but thriving. In mountainous areas, in particular, chalets, new and old, are everywhere. One can easily find villages in which virtually every building is a chalet. Chalets as houses. Chalets as inns and pubs. Chalets as shops. Yes the chalet is alive and well and as charming as ever. It is representative of a culture born of the environment and a way of life. Thus, it isn't surprising that there is a museum dedicated to preserving that way of life, not abandoned, though certainly changed by technology.

The Swiss Open-Air Museum Ballenberg is home to approximately 100 buildings from across Switzerland, buildings that are representative of the numerous regional variations. The buildings are disassembled, relocated to the museum's 160 acre campus, and painstakingly reconstructed. Most are wooden and related to farm life -- houses and barns, of course, as well as buildings for making cheese, milling, smoking meats, etc. The oldest building on the site dates to c. 1335, the newest to about a century ago. A surprising number are more than 300 years old. It is a wonderfully compelling place.


One of the few houses at Ballenberg that was not originally in a rural setting. This "villa" from the Bernese Midlands was built for a wealthy textile manufacturer in 1872.

One of the most interesting aspects of Ballenberg is that none of these buildings are "important." No momentous events occurred in any of them. None were designed by well-known architects -- most were not designed by any architect at all. These are simple farm structures, important for the history they can teach. The most obvious lesson is that life is considerably more comfortable today than it was several centuries ago. In addition, Ballenberg provides glimpses of that life. The mill still mills, the smokehouse still smokes, bread and cheese are made on-site, as are wood shingles and charcoal. Cows, goats, pigs and chickens roam the fields -- though that isn't so unusual in a country where cows occupy every piece of unbuilt land.

Architects and critics distinguish buildings from architecture. My entire life, I've lived in buildings; Fallingwater and the Gamble house are architecture, which is to say art. The latter pair advanced the field and altered public perception. They are deserving of acclaim whereas a tract home is not. At this level, the distinction is understandable and reasonable. By this metric, however, the buildings at Ballenberg do not qualify as architecture. They didn't advance the designer's art, nor did they alter public perception. They are not artful in the conventional sense. What many of the structures represent is the final perfection of a type of building that was almost entirely functional, that supported and sustained a way of life in often harsh conditions. There is, I think, something truly artful in that.

On Friday, Chalet Week concludes with a look at chalets and bungalows.