Duration: 10 March - 15 April 2023

with Simon Baumberger, Andrea Gwerder, Anastasia Pavlou, Mathis Pfäffli, Ludwig Suter, John Walder

The house “Taurus” on Chilegass 11 and 13 in Beromünster, Lucerne has been used by marytwo as a guest house for artists and curators since summer 2022. This interim use will last until summer 2023, then the listed building will be carefully restored and made habitable again. By hosting our national and international guests, we have spent a lot of time in the area and find “Taurus” to be a patchwork of different times, located on the Flecken, the historic village centre of Beromünster.

The works in this group exhibition deal with the house from near and far, without taking away its mystique. The following text is a contribution by Isabella Meili, regional and deputy conservator for Canton Lucerne.

Houses offer protection, security, identification and a home. They are constructed. A living history you can touch and sometimes depict several centuries at once.

During this long period, the houses had to repeatedly adapt to new residents and their activities, habits and tastes. These buildings acquired a new facade, new fittings, new uses, new extensions and new roofs. If the interventions were carried out with respect for the achievements of the former and with care for the construction and special components, the buildings could enrich their character and retain their soul. The attentive observer will then read the traces of history, can learn something about its origin and future, enjoy proportions, materials, ornamentation or craftsmanship. To ensure future generations can do the same, some of these houses and groups of buildings are listed as cultural monuments in inventories, which should encourage us to continue to treat the houses and their stories with care.

This is exactly what happened to the house at Chilegass 11 and 13, which was listed as a cultural monument worthy of protection in the nationally significant townscape of Beromünster, Switzerland. For many years it has stood as an impressive landmark to the north of the parish church of St. Stephen. It can already be seen in Matthäus Merian’s engraving of 1642.

At that time, it had an inviting, brick exterior staircase leading to the residential storey on the first floor and its roof ridge was rotated 90° compared to today’s house. This staircase was possibly lost shortly after the artist had captured the view. As a determination of the wood’s age revealed, the present timber frame construction of the residential storeys above the stone plinth dates back to 1655.

The devastating fire of March the 12th 1764, which reduced 86 houses and 6 barns to rubble, spared the building. In 1790 it was given a gigantic gabled attic, for which the facade openings and parts of the interior
decoration were probably also renewed in the style of the period. Just around this time, an artist, Wilhelm Dörflinger, was on the road again, capturing landscapes and principalities on copper plates. The engravings printed after him now show a pleasant single building on the Chilegass, facing the Flecken (village square) and surrounded by wide gardens and orchards on the edge of the settlement. This image still remains today, although some changes have of course been made.

A small flat with its own kitchen was partitioned off on the first floor, and its chimney bears the date 1866. Previously occupied by one family, the house was divided along the roof ridge in 1894, necessitating new entrances and room partitions. A coppersmith’s workshop was built into the basement and number 13 first received a stable extension to the north, then on the west side around 1908 a workshop with an apartment under a cross gable roof. Chambers were newly wallpapered or given wooden panelling, electric lights replaced gas lamps and candles, modern sanitary facilities replaced the outside toilet and the washstand. And yet to this day, we immediately recognise the house from 1790 with its unusually wide facade, traditional Swiss “Klebdach” and the mighty 3-storey windowed attic rising above it.

It stands above the village square and church having experienced more than most. How reputable and successful its owners must once have been to build such a house and fill this attic with goods! It has been in the Kopp family for over 200 years, but now a new owner will take on its fortunes. The layers and stories of the house will now be carefully rediscovered, re-read and interpreted in a variety of ways in order to write new exciting chapters with respect for the surviving heritage.

Isabella Meili-Rigert, Regional and Deputy Conservator at the State Office for the Preservation of Historical Monuments in Canton Lucerne