Schellen-Ursli, the legendary Swiss children's book, first appeared in German in 1945. The cover shows "Ursli" ("Uorsin"), the title character, a schoolboy wearing a heavy cowbell around his shoulders and knocking at the door of his family's house. The cobble-stone pavement in the foreground, the thick, plastered stone wall and the painted bench on the right, let alone the beautifully crafted, wooden door and the "sgraffito" inscription on the façade identifying the authors of the book (Selina Chönz and Alois Carigiet) automatically bring to mind the Engadin. The Engadin, today one of Switzerland's most fully equipped vacation and holiday resorts, is, on the one hand, the synonym of a High Alpine region rich in carefully preserved vernacular artefacts and traditions and, on the other, of a widespread and multifaceted universe of built, crafted or industrially produced high- or low-brow commercial recyclings of this heritage. It thus simultaneously represents what everybody loves, the traces of an authentic folk culture, and what the guardians of good taste like to hate, i.e. a mischmasch of first-, second-, or third-degree derivations of this heritage, albeit intersperced with occasional bijoux of modernist or post-modernist high design.

In its origins, Schellen-Ursli was part of an Alpine village's stock of local legends. The village's name is Guarda, a rather small community sited on a hillcock a few kilometers east of Zernez that had become the object of a highly publicized renovation and reconstruction campaign started around 1938. But what does Schellen-Ursli have in common with Le Corbusier? - Nothing, at first sight, except for the fact that both Le Corbusier and Schellen-Ursli are internationally known by books, and furthermore, by books that have almost inevitably been published in Zurich (I am thinking of the eight volumes of the Oeuvre complète). Furthermore, one could also draw an analogy between the horizontal "Album"-book format in both cases. Granted that, in terms of publication figures, Schellen-Ursli was certainly far more successful: it first appeared in book form in 1945 (Schweizer Spiegel Verlag, Zurich; editions in the national languages Italian and French followed, as did editions in numerous other languages and dialects, including Japanese in 1946, English in 1950, Chinese in 2007, Esperanto in 2017, and Icelandic in 2025) - the English version, by the way, was entitled A Bell for Ursli. But the measure of Schellen-Ursli's lasting fame is ultimately given by his entry into the pantheon of Hollywood productions, a privilege Le Corbusier was never granted. Note that Xavier Koller, whose blockbuster production, entitled "Schellen-Ursli", came out in 2015, had been preceded by Walt Disney, who no later than 1952 - three years before the founding of Disneyland - chose Guarda as location for what he believed to be the non-plus-ultra of Swiss authenticity. And as if the were no other choice, the "plot" was organized around the Schellen-Ursli legend as documented in Selina Könz' and Alois Carigiet's book.

“Real” and “fake.” Old and “new-old.”

What, apart from its picturesque site, could have made Guarda the subject of so much attention? - After having been sacked and destroyed during the Thirty Years’ War, the town was almost entirely rebuilt after 1620, which explains its relative stylistic uniformity. Whith such a prehistory of resilience, Guarda was perhaps predestined to become a fulcrum of patriotic sentiment during World War II. A few months before its outbreak, in 1938, the Swiss Confederation had decided to consecrate the "Romanche" language (spoken in parts of the Grisons, including the Engadin) as the fourth official national language. Needless to say that the War did not fail to add urgency to that project. Under the sway of "Geistige Landesverteidigung" (Spiritual Defense of the Nation) Guarda became a byname not only of Switzerland's rural origins, but of that nation's political will to acknowledge the plurality of such rural-vernacular building cultures as a matter of national identity.

Photographs by Johann FeuersteinA documenting villages like Scuol, Santa Maria or indeed Guarda itself give an idea of the pre-modern condition of those villages. Many among those rural homes have since either disappeared or been more or less carefully transformed into secondary homes for urbanites from Zurich, Basle or Milan. If Feuerstein documented the "anonymous" background of pre-industrial rural life, the Grisons photographer Albert SteinerC gives a measure of the cleaned-up and re-personalized Engadin "vernacular" that by the mid 20th century had become the trademark of that region. No later than 1946, the country's leading travel journal (For decades, the latest issue, hung on a string from the luggage rack above the seats, was a permanent fixture in Swiss Federal Railways carriages.) celebrated Guarda's "resurrection", singling out the village as a synonym of Engadin's historic heritage as well as, by implication, a prime tourist destination.

The article is signed by Iachen Ulrich Könz, the architect who had initiated the operation and the local spokesman of what is best described as the second generation of Heimatschutz reform in the region. Contrary to what current understanding might suggest, the Heimatschutz as an organization was not merely engaged in the preservation of old buildings, but in consolidating the respective heritage via the supplement of new building in a style derived from local high and low vernacular precedents. Nor were material "authenticity" and stylistic "make-believe" seen as being mutually exclusive. A key witness to the first generation Heimatschutz reform in the Grisons is the "Engadin Museum" in St.Moritz. At first sight, a not too sharp-eyed observer might easily date the building to the 17th century, given the many analogies with a but barely more elaborate house in Celerina published in Jakob Hunziker's multi-volume series on Das Schweizerhaus nach seinen landschaftlichen Formen...(etc.; 1910-14) Yet the Museum was built in 1907 (the organization named "Swiss Heimatschutz" had just been founded two years previously). Thus, as a public representation of the tradition it stands for, it is an authentic 'fake' (the oriel and the grilles of its front façade are copied from the said house in Celerina whereas the arcade on its western façade is a spolia from the 'Old Monastery' in Scuol, and so on). As architecture, however, it is an original work by the eminent Grisons architect Nicolaus Hartmann Jr. (1880–1956). And it is so precisely because of the mastery shown in the architectural technique of imitation and of the use of historical spolia and quotation to suit a modern program.

Three to four decades later, Iachen Ulrich Könz attempted something similar in Guarda, but now on the scale of an entire village. The demonstrative nature of the operation is revealed by a portrait that stages the architect in historic costume, standing in front of his house together with his son and his friend Alois Carigiet, a well-known graphic designer and illustrator.E Könz had learned to practice architecture literally as a rescue operation. After his graduation from the ETH, right after WW I, he was initiated to the job of reconstruction in France, in the rebuilding of La Rochelle and Nesle, not far from Amiens. Back home, the peaceful valley of the Engadin offered many chances to apply the lessons learned, given a series of legendary fires that devastated entire villages in the first half of the 20th century. It comes as no surprise that the criteria that he brought to bear for the Engadin followed word by word the principles that the Schweizer Heimatschutz had been advocating since its beginnings. As is mirrored when, in his monograph on the Engadin House (1952), he writes of Tschlin: ‘The village, which burned down in 1856, was rebuilt as an authentic Engadin village’ whereas Susch and Zernez, he finds, have somewhat later been rebuilt ‘inauthentically', i.e. ‘in an extremely dry and insipid way’. Still later, after the fire that famously ruined the village of Sent (1921), ‘the essence of the old Engadin house’ was taken as a guideline, he writes, as he himself later did when restoring Guarda.

Guarda thus was understood both as the sum total of sound approaches to 'authentic' restoration and reconstruction - and as a gold standard for how to go about such tasks should they become necessary in the future. Key among the characteristics of the 'authentic' Engadin house to be kept in mind are the typically arched house entrances as well, of course, the sgraffito decorations, Könz writes. Not to forget the deep, tapered lighting slits that he somewhat surprisingly claims had inspired Le Corbusier’s design of the south façade of Ronchamp (in which he may even have a point; see.

In Guarda 1945

World War II had not even formally ended when a small group of French intellectuals and artists was on its World War II had not even formally ended when a small group of French intellectuals and artists was on its way for a short trip to Switzerland that also included the Engadin (5-21 July 1945). The invitation had come from the Association of Swiss Writers (Schweizerischer Schriftstellerverein) and was signed by Paul Budry, an essayist and art critic, at that time editor in chief of a journal published by the Swiss Federal Railways and entitled Die Schweiz = Suisse = Svizzera. The Swiss National Tourist Agency (Office National Suisse du Tourisme, ONST), in fact Budry as the director of its Lausanne branch, had just commissioned the painter Alois Carigiet to design one of his beautiful travel posters in praise of the country's "incomparably varied landscapes", its "impeccable tourist organization", its "electrified railways", etc., with the snow-laden Jungfrau rising on the horizon of Interlaken serving as eye-catcher.

In order to highlight the accessability of such famous but remote sites the artist has invented a mountain lake and besides it, a visitor. A painted invitation, the picture makes one think of a well-known essay by Adolf Loos ("Architektur", 1910): "May I take you to the shores of a mountain lake? The sky is blue, the water is green, and everything is at peace. The mountains and the clouds are reflected in the lake, as are the houses, farms, and chapels. They stand there as if they had never been built by human hands. They look as if they had come from God's own workshop, just like the mountains and the trees, the clouds and the blue sky. And everything radiates beauty and quiet."

These were not yet the years of mass tourism. Both with the poster and the invitation to the circle of French literati, Budry was aiming at an "educated" public, and certainly the French travel group could not have correspondeded better with these stakes. The group was led by the writer and literary critic Jean Paulhan, who later recorded his memory of the excursion in a tiny and rather entertaining book.B Paulhan had in the 1920s been a companion of the Parisian Dada-Group, out of which emerged surrealism. During WW II, in his role as chief editor of Gallimard, he was one of the literary voices of the résistance, a term he understood as a literary and artistic rather than a merely political commitment. This said, as a traveller with open eyes he certainly did not make any fuzz about the comfortable neutrality his host country had enjoyed during the War, and he rather joyfully extended this irony to the travel party itself.

For Budry, the invitation offered a chance to reactivate a network of friends that had existed for more than two decades but whose members had since spread into an array of different directions. The group included the writer Albert Cingria, the painter Jean Dubuffet and the Paris-based Swiss architect Le Corbusier as well as the painter René Auberjonois, the senior member of the group (*1872) - he too, like Le Corbusier and Cingria, a Swiss. Budry had been friends with Le Corbusier since the early 1920s, and the same goes for the much younger Dubuffet. Among other things, and apart from being a correspondent of L'Esprit Nouveau, Budry used to provide Le Corbusier with illustrations of the dams of the Swiss power industry in the Valais.

What does create a certain amount of confusion is that Paulhan in his travelogue uses made-up names for the individuals involved, so as to feel free to express himself candidly about some of their character traits – Le Corbusier e.g. is "Auxionnaz"; Dubuffet is "Limérique". As a result, these at times rather curious reminiscences never made it into the respective actors' official biographies.

The primary stop in the Engadin was Guarda. What seems to have triggered the French travel group's curiosity more than everything else, were the sgraffiti inscriptions and ornaments that covered the houses: "The houses in Guarda have inscriptions and paintings in bright colours on their walls", Paulhan notes, "Dragons, extremely skilfully rendered winged horses, billy goats, rosettes and triangles are reproduced on the façades as well as the names of Jesus, Mary and Joseph". A glance at the beautiful drawings and watercolors made around 1910 by Hans Jenny, a pioneer in the documentation and study of the Engadin's architectural past, give a vivid idea of what Paulhan must have had on his mind. Yet if it is difficult not to note a certain sarcasm in Paulhan's report, it may have to do with the fact that the visual concert of those sgraffiti decorations, following either Renaissance patterns or baroque or classical variations thereof, multiplied by the variety that results from the overlay of consecutive restorations and renovations - some authored by "academically" trained craftsmen, others by more or less "naive" or "folk" artists - can't help resulting in an impression of fuzz.

The reason for people to like ornaments on houses is that they make dating so easy, Adolf Loos once pointed out. Yet in reality the opposite is true. "Style" is a tricky criterion to begin with, especially in a world where various styles have been practiced side by side for centuries. Should one go by the date of origin, or the date(s) of restoration? In general both are highlighted on the façades, even in houses of but modest representative claim. In his own house, Iachen Ulrich Könz - the epitome of an "academically" trained restorer - highlights the date of origin (1646) on the front façade whereas the date of the renovation and the names of the workmen involved are revealed on the side (1940). The most recent date inscribed on a façade usually being that of its origin, the chance of it being based on hearsay rather than on documented fact can at least not be discarded. Be that, as it may, Limérique (in fact, Dubuffet) withhold any judgement of this art, Paulhan writes. Not so Auxionnaz (de facto, Le Corbusier): the old paintings on the facades were ‘purement admirables’, but the new ones were symptomatic of the ‘horreur moderne’... A declaration that may seem plausible enough, even though considering the knotty phenomenon of the ‘Engadin house’, one wonders how even a trained eye like Le Corbusier’s could distinguish the historical ornaments from the new ones. Especially so since the new ones had been painted to look as old as possible, and the old ones restored to a degree that the age noted in the inscription could hardly be taken at face value. The difficulty of deciding clearly under such circumstances whether a given example is an original, a copy or a free invention is evident. In other words: The closer one looks, the more such criteria as ‘authentic’ and ‘inauthentic’ or ‘historical’, ‘historicising’ or ‘folk-naïve’ prove to be useless.

No surprise, therefore, that the skillfully guided tour of Guarda resulted in a mix of confusion and boredom on the side of the travel group. In fact, as it was standing in front of the fortieth or so house that the local expert showed them, a minor eclat seems to have occurred. The owner of one of the homes had applied an inscription to his house in order to express his anger with the aesthetic patronizing of the cantonal authorities. Terms like ‘slippery’ or ‘lubricious’ appear to have been voiced during the conversation hat followed. A special pleasure seems to have been provided by the phrase ‘maison lubrique’, all the more so as a girl wearing a red scarf appeared at the door, adding a touch of smear theatre to the scene. Upon which Paulhan was quick in offering a latin translation of the term "Maison lubrique": Tecta Lubrica.

A few moments later, a local architect joined the group, having heard of Le Corbusier’s presence. There can be no doubt that this man was Iachen Ulrich Könz, the ‘King of Guarda’. If Paulhans' conclusions from the clash between the two collegues were correct, then our friend (i.e., Le Corbusier) must have been widely beside the mark regarding the issue of dating the ornaments on the façades. "Nevertheless, we hesitated to suddenly consider admirable the dragons that had seemed frightful to us a moment earlier (and vice versa)," Paulhans continued. - Be that, as it may, as the architects quarrelled about the sgraffiti, Le Corbusier may have had time to inspect the characteristic lighting slits of many of those homes, which would find a distant echo ten years later in the south wall of the pilgrimage chapel in Ronchamp.

…to becontinued