Swissness Applied

New Glarus, Wisconsin: a prime example of cultural heritage in diaspora and of imagery and appropriation in architecture

Founded by Swiss settlers in 1845, New Glarus in Wisconsin evolved from being a dairy farming and cheese production village to a popular tourist destination. Following a grave economic downturn in the 1960s and 1970s, the community discovered embracing the image of its cultural heritage, particularly traditional architectural details, as a way of survival. Consequently, they began to change their commercial building façades to appear even more Swiss. Since 1999, the town has even regulated the production of new buildings via its building codes to preserve this particular aesthetic evoking the familiar traditional Swiss chalet style.

Swissness Applied investigates the transformation of European immigrant towns in the United States, exemplified by New Glarus. It features the results of extensive fieldwork on buildings in the village as well as design projections based on the local building code and evaluates the outcomes through different representation techniques. Expert authors including Courntey Coffman, Kurt Forster, Whitney Moon, Philip Ursprung, and Jesús Vassallo contribute essays that pick up on aspects such as the role of cultural imagery and immigration history in architecture, and on Swissness as a cultural concept in particular.

Winner of the DAM Architectural Book Award 2022.

• A unique and fascinating study at the interface of cultural anthropology, diaspora research, and architecture

• Investigates the influence of cultural heritage and imagery on architectural production

  Autorentext
  Nicole McIntosh and Jonathan Louie are the cofounders of Zurich-based firm Architecture Office. Parallel to their work as designing architects they pursue various research and exhibition projects.