The reconstruction of the house of Matten
Housing In the mid-17th century, a farmer in Matten, near Interlaken, built his log cabin. After the Ballenberg Open-Air Museum spent thirty years showcasing how people lived in the Bernese Oberland in the late 17th century, the museum is now giving the cabin a new lease on life.
Living In the middle of the 17th century, a farmer in Matten near Interlaken erected his wooden house in log construction. The house underwent constant changes, its greatest in 1977. It traveled, disassembled as a monument on a truck, to the Open Air Museum Ballenberg. After thirty years of demonstrating how people lived in the Bernese Oberland in the late 17th century, the museum is now giving it a new career. It has had the house converted so that father, mother and two children can live in it in contemporary comfort. The project is a piece of museum pedagogy, because 250,000 people visit Ballenberg every year. They should learn from the House of Matten that it can be worthwhile to carefully convert an old house. Hochparterre dedicates a special issue to this conversion, showing the design and realization step by step. The booklet pays tribute to an extraordinary project and is a practical and ideological guide for all those who want to give old buildings in rural areas a contemporary life.
