The Culture
HEALTHY, WEALTHY & WISE
ECONOMY
POPULATION
SPORT
MULTICULTURALISM
RELIGION
ARTS
SCIENCE
SONDERFALL SCHWEIZ
Toblerone chocolate, cheese, cuckoo clocks, precision watches and banking secrecy, Heidi, William Tell, yodelling, the Alps – stereotypes envelope Switzerland and the Swiss like mad. Ruthlessly efficient, hard-working, supremely clean and organised, orderly, obedient and overly cautious are among the superlatives piled on this too-well-behaved people most mothers would adore as sons-in-law: no Swiss pedestrian dares cross the road unless the light is green.
Cultural diversity is this country’s overwhelming trait, eloquently expressed in four languages and attitudes: German-, French- and Italian-speaking Swiss all, at one point or other, display similar characteristics to Germans, French and Italians respectively, creating an instant line-up of reassuringly varied, diverse and oftentimes surprising psyches. Then, of course, there are the handful in Graubünden who speak Romansch, with its many dialects practically no one outside the valley concerned understands. Never say the Swiss are cookie-cutter dull.
Quite the contrary: the Swiss consider themselves different and they are. From centuries-old Alpine traditions, positively wild in nature, such as wrestling and stone throwing Click here, to new-millennium Zooglers who shimmy into work each morning down a fire pole Click here, to Geneva jewellers who make watches from moon dust Click here or fashionable 30-somethings who strut savvy in recycled truck tarps and Cambodian fish sacks (p228 and Click here), the Swiss know how to innovate.
Not just that: they have the determination to compliment their creativity, keenly demonstrated by both their restless quest to test their limits in the sports arena Click here and the extraordinarily tough, independent spirit with which Swiss farmers resolutely work the land to mete out a sustainable lifestyle Click here. That Sonderfall Schweiz halo Click here might not shine quite as brightly as it did a few decades back, but it definitely still glints.
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HEALTHY, WEALTHY & WISE
‘They are’, wrote the UK’s Guardian newspaper, ‘probably the most fortunate people on the planet. Healthy, wealthy and, thanks to an outstanding education system, wise. They enjoy a life most of us can only dream about. For ease of reference we commonly refer to them as the Swiss.’ This deadpan doffing of the cap from a nation that usually scorns ‘dull’ Switzerland was prompted by yet another quality-of-life survey listing Zürich, Geneva, and Bern among the planet’s best cities. Those ratings haven’t changed much since: Mercer Consultancy’s 2008 quality-of-life report ranked Zürich number one for the seventh consecutive year, Geneva an equal second with Vienna and Bern ninth.
Urban Swiss don’t enjoy a particularly different lifestyle from other Westerners; they just enjoy it more. They can rely on their little nation, one of the world’s 10 richest in terms of GDP per capita, to deliver excellent health services, efficient public transport and all-round security. Spend a little time among them and you realise their sportiness, attention to diet and concern for the environment is symptomatic of another condition: they want to extract the most from life.
It’s hardly surprising, then, that the Swiss have the greatest life expectancy in Europe: women live to an average 83.7 years, men to 77.9. Switzerland isn’t immune to modern worries, including AIDS and drugs, but the distribution of wealth in Switzerland is more even than in many contemporary societies. Most people can afford to rate friends and family – not work – as their top priority.
Swiss lifestyle is not all sipping Champagne cocktails costing Sfr10,000 from carved ice glasses in Verbier and hobnobbing on the ski slopes during weekend visits to the chalets many Swiss own or rent for the season. In rural regions – particularly Appenzellerland, Valais and the Jura – it is traditional culture, not money-driven glam, that talks as people don folk costumes during festivals and mark the seasons with time-honoured Alpine rituals. Fathers teach their sons, as their fathers did when they were young, the fine art of alpenhorn playing Click here, while younger siblings learn how to wave the Swiss flag. In spring shepherds decorate their cattle with flowers and bells to herd them in procession to mountain pastures, where they both spend the summer.
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ECONOMY
The Swiss are careful with money and conservative with their currency. Since the Swiss franc went into circulation in the 1850s, it has rarely been tampered with: the decision in 2005 to drop the five-cent coin because it cost six cents to make was a minor earthquake in a country where change tends to be viewed warily.
As the USA and EU countries lurched into recession at the end of 2008, Switzerland – despite its own twinset of troubled banks and UBS government rescue package (Click here) – appeared to be weathering the global financial crisis pretty well. The overall economy grew by 1.9% in 2008 and unemployment figures remain low compared to the rest of Europe – 2.5% in October 2008 and expected to rise, at worst, to 3.5% by the end of 2009. Inflation, 2.6% in mid-2008, will fall to 1.5% by 2009, say economists.
As a global financial centre and guardian to a substantial chunk of the world’s offshore funds, Switzerland is synonymous with numbered accounts and financial secrecy. Every Swiss canton sets its own tax rates, prompting individuals and businesses to ‘play’ the canton market: Zug entices tycoons with Switzerland’s lowest income and corporate tax rates and breaks, Click here. Obwalden meanwhile, in a bid to rejuvenate its rural economy, slashed its income tax in November 2008 to one flat rate (24.1%) for all, rich and poor alike.
ON GUARD
One piece of bad news for visitors: the rapid rise of the Swiss franc as a safe haven against all other main currencies.
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POPULATION
Switzerland averages 176 inhabitants per square kilometre, with Alpine districts more sparsely populated and urban areas more densely populated: one-third of Switzerland’s total population lives in the Zürich, Basel, Geneva, Bern and Lausanne agglomerations; another third lives in the countryside.
German speakers account for 64% of the population, French 19%, Italian 8% and Romansch under 1%. Swiss German speakers write standard (High) German, but speak their own language: Schwyzertütsch has no official written form and is mostly unintelligible to outsiders. Linguists have identified at least two Romansch dialects and three variants of Italian, sometimes varying from valley to valley.
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SPORT
Sidestep mainstream sport: no country has better reinvented the sporting wheel than Switzerland.
Alpine Traditions
Hornussen, medieval in origin, is played by two teams, each 16 to 18 strong. One launches a 78g Hornuss (ball) over a field; the other tries to stop it hitting the ground with a Schindel, a 4kg implement resembling a road sign. To add to the game’s bizarre quality, the Hornuss is launched by whipping it around a steel ramp with a flexible rod, in a motion that’s a cross between shot putting and fly-fishing, while the Schindel can be used as a bat to stop the 85m-per-second ball or simply tossed into the air at it.
Verging on the vicious, Schwingen is a Swiss version of sumo wrestling, battled out between everyone from 10-year-old girls to brawny young farm lads. The pair, each wearing short hessian shorts, face off across a circle of sawdust. Each leans towards the other and grabs their opponent by the back of the shorts. Through a complicated combination of prescribed grips (including crotch grips), jerks, feints and other manoeuvres, each tries to wrestle their opponent onto his or her back. Go to any mountain fair or Alpine festival and there is sure to be a Schwingen with a very large crowd of cheering parents around it.
Other eclectic pursuits, all in good sport, include Steinstossen (stone throwing), famously practised at the Alpine Games; cricket, polo and horse racing on ice (opposite); trotti-biking, whereby rural hipsters race down hills on an off-road version of the ’90s urban microscooter; and Waffenlaufen (weapon running), whereby macho men don camouflage, military garb, rucksack and rifle and run up and down mountains.
Then there’s cow fighting Click here and Chüefladefäscht (cow-dung smashing; Click here), which sees fired-up Swiss (is this possible?) wielding golf clubs and pitch forks as they leap around Alpine pastures polka-dotted with cow pats – 17,000 were laid out for Riederalp’s 2008 competition in an attempt to beat the previous year’s record of 2137 smashed cow pats.
Football & Tennis
No international sporting event was such a let-down for Switzerland as Euro 2008 (European Championship Cup) – the largest sporting event ever to take place in the country – which it cohosted with Austria…and got knocked out of in the very first round. The 23-day tournament did yield a couple of swanky designer stadiums for the country, though, to the joy of Swiss sports enthusiasts whose number-one spectator sport is football. On a national level FC Basel and Zürich Grasshoppers top the league.
SPORTING DIARY
Swiss tennis ace Roger Federer (b 1981) was world number one for a record 237 consecutive weeks between 2004 and 2008 (when Spain’s Rafael Nadal knocked him to second place). In women’s tennis Czech-born Swiss player Martina Hingis (b 1980) ranked world number one for 209 weeks before retiring from the game in 2006. Basel-born Patty Schnyder (b 1978), number seven in late 2008, is Switzerland’s biggest current female player.
Winter Sports
Ice hockey is Switzerland’s other big spectator sport and its men’s national hockey side ranks number seven in the world. Zürich and Bern will cohost the IIHF World Championships in 2009.
Swiss Alpine ski champ Daniel Albrecht (b 1983) started the 2008–09 season in fine mettle by scooping the season-opening World Cup giant slalom – his third World Cup win and the first Swiss racer to win a season-opening event since Steve Locher (b 1967) in 1996. Off-piste the 25-year-old skier launched his own designer collection of skiwear, which sports his college nickname, Albright.
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MULTICULTURALISM
Not counting seasonal workers, temporary residents and international civil servants, 20.7% of people living in Switzerland are not Swiss citizens – rather resident immigrants (54% of whom were either born in Switzerland or have lived in the country for at least 15 years). Many arrived after WWII, initially from Italy and Spain, and later the former Yugoslavia.
As anywhere else, part of the populace appreciates the cultural wealth and labour immigrants bring; others lean towards xenophobia. While obtaining Swiss citizenship remains notoriously difficult – foreigners must have lived in Switzerland for at least 12 years and approach the federal government, as well as their canton and commune – the process is not as ruthless as a few years back when the final call on whether an applicant could become Swiss was down to the local community who voted in a secret ballot. Interestingly, a bid to revive this discriminatory system was rejected in a national referendum held in May 2008.
THE SWISS FLAG
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RELIGION
The split between Roman Catholicism (42%) and Protestantism (35%) roughly follows cantonal lines. Key Protestant areas include Zürich, Geneva, Vaud, Thurgau, Neuchâtel and Glarus; strong Catholic areas include Valais, Ticino, Uri, Unterwalden and Schwyz, as well as Fribourg, Lucerne, Zug and Jura.
Just over 4% of the population is Muslim.
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ARTS
Many a foreign writer and artist, including Voltaire, Byron, Shelley and Turner, have waxed lyrical about Switzerland in words or on canvas – as have architects Sir Norman Foster, Renzo Piano and Jean Nouvel in steel and glass.
Architecture
Switzerland’s contribution to modern architecture is pivotal thanks to Le Corbusier (1887–1965), born in La Chaux-de-Fonds. Known for his radical economy of design, formalism and functionalism, Le Corbusier spent most of his working life in France but did grace his country of birth with his first Click here and last Click here creations.
Contemporary Swiss architects continue to innovate. As creators of London’s Tate Modern gallery, 2001 winners of the prestigious Pritzker Prize and designers of the main stadium for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Basel-based partners Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron (both b 1950) are the best known. Admire their work in Basel and in Davos – so far pie in the sky – in the form of a 105m-tall pencil twisting above the mythical Schatzalp (work was expected to start in 2009). The other big name is Ticino architect Mario Botta (b 1943; www.botta.ch) who basks in the international limelight as creator of San Francisco’s Museum of Modern Art; his Church of San Giovanni Battista in Mogno and his cathedral-style Tschuggen Bergoase spa-hotel in Arosa are soul-soothing creations.
Then there is the award-winning Therme Vals, cut from concrete and quartzite, by Basel-born Peter Zumthor (b 1943); Davos’ Kirchner Museum by Zürich’s Annette Gigon and Mike Guyer (www.gigon-guyer.ch); and a clutch of design hotels in Zermatt by resident avant-garde architect Heinz Julen (www.heinz-julen.com).
For an overview of rural Swiss architecture and its regional differences, visit the Freilichtmuseum Ballenberg near Brienz.
Literature
Thanks to a 1930s Shirley Temple film, Johanna Spyri’s Heidi is the most famous Swiss novel. The story of an orphan living with her grandfather in the Swiss Alps who is ripped away to the city is unashamedly sentimental and utterly atypical for Swiss literature. Otherwise, the genre is quite serious and gloomy.
Take the German-born, naturalised Swiss Hermann Hesse (1877–1962). A Nobel Prize winner, he fused Eastern mysticism and Jungian psychology to advance the theory that Western civilisation is doomed unless humankind gets in touch with its own essential humanity – as in Siddharta (1922) and Steppenwolf (1927). Later novels such as Narzissus und Goldmund (1930) and the cult The Glass Bead Game (1943) explore the tension between individual freedom and social controls.
Similarly, the most recognised work by Zürich-born Max Frisch (1911–91), Ich bin nicht Stiller (1954; I’m Not Stiller/I’m Not Relaxed) is a dark, Kafkaesque tale of mistaken identity. More accessible is Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921–90), who created a rich seam of detective fiction.
Green Henry (1854), by Gottfried Keller (1819–1900), is a massive tome revolving around a Zürich student’s reminiscences and is considered one of the masterpieces of Germanic literature.
Music & Dance
Yodelling and alpenhorns are the traditional forms of Swiss ‘music’. Yodelling began in the Alps as a means of communication between peaks, but became separated into two disciplines: Juchzin consists in short yells with different meanings such as ‘it’s dinner time’ or ‘we’re coming’, while Naturjodel sees one or more voices sing a melody without lyrics. Yodelling is fast becoming the trendy thing to do in urban circles thanks in part to Swiss folk singers like Nadja Räss who yodel with great success.
‘Dr Schacher Seppli’, a traditional song reyodelled by Switzerland’s best-known yodeller, farmer and cheesemaker Rudolf Rymann (1933–2008), is an iconic iPod download. The other big sound is Sonalp (www.sonalp.com), a nine-man band from the Gruyères–Château-d’Œx region, whose vibrant ethno-folk mix of yodelling, cow bells, musical saw, classical violin and didgeridoo is contagious.
COMPLETELY DADA
SWISS ROLL CALL
- Ursula Andress (b 1936) Actress and ’60s sex symbol, most famous for her bikini-clad appearance in the James Bond flick Dr No.
- Sepp (Joseph) Blatter (b 1936) Outspoken president of FIFA, world football’s governing body, who famously said of women’s football that the shorts should be tighter.
- Alain de Botton (b 1969) Zürich-born pop philosopher and globally best-selling author of The Art of Travel etc
- Louis Chevrolet (1878–1941) Founder of the Chevrolet Manufacturing Company in 1911, producer of archetypal ‘American’ automobiles.
- Le Corbusier (1887–1965) Architectural innovator, often confused as French.
- Marc Forster (b 1969) Oscar-winning director of Monster’s Ball and Finding Neverland.
- Albert Hofmann (1906–2008) The first person to synthesise and experiment with lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD).
- Jean-Luc Godard (b 1930) More-Swiss-than-French avant-garde film-maker.
- Elisabeth Kübler-Ross (1926–2004) Psychiatrist whose On Death and Dying articulated the famous five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.
- Erich von Däniken (b 1935) Controversial expounder of far-fetched early-history theories in the 1970s bestseller Chariots of the Gods?
Should folk ballads be more your cup of tea, the fragile voice of 24-year-old Swiss singer Sophie Hunger (www.sophiehunger.com) will make it straight to your iPod: her second album Monday’s Ghost (2008) won instant international acclaim.
The alpenhorn, a pastoral instrument used to herd cattle in the mountains, is a wind instrument, 2m to 4m long with a curved base and a cup-shaped mouthpiece: the shorter the horn the harder it is to play. Catch a symphony of a hundred-odd alpenhorn players blowing in unison on the ‘stage’ – usually alfresco and invariably lakeside between mountain peaks – and you’ll be won over forever. Key dates include September’s Alphorn In Concert festival (www.alphorninconcert.ch, in German) in Oesingen near Solothurn and July’s International Alphorn Festival (www.nendaz.ch), emotively held on the Alpine shores of Lac de Tracouet in Nendaz, 13km south of Sion in the Valais; hike or ride the cable car up.
One performance group worth seeing is Öff Öff (www.oeffoeff.ch), an aerial-theatre and dance company from Bern which tours using a transportable ‘Air Station’ (rotating climbing frame) and has been described as a combination of dance and (how very Swiss!) mountaineering.
Painting, Sculpture & Design
Dada aside (see boxed text), there have been few Swiss art movements. The painter who most concerned himself with Swiss themes was Ferdinand Hodler (1853–1918), who depicted folk heroes, like William Tell (see Kunstmuseum, Click here), and events from history, such as the first grassroots Swiss vote (see Kunsthaus, Click here). Hodler also remained resident in Switzerland, unlike many fellow Swiss artists.
Abstract artist and colour specialist Paul Klee (1879–1940) spent most of his life in Germany, including with the Bauhaus school, but the largest showcase of his work is in Bern. Likewise, the sculptor Alberto Giacometti (1901–66) worked in Paris, but many of his trademark stick figures have made it back to Zürich’s Kunsthaus.
Quirky sculptures by Paris-based Jean Tinguely (1925–91) are clustered around Basel and Fribourg.
Then there is Gianni Motti (b 1958), an Italian artist considered Swiss – he lives and works in Geneva – notorious for his ‘artistic’ stunts, such as selling bars of soap made from Silvio Berlusconi’s liposuctioned fat for US$18,000 a piece. Yum.
The Swiss excel in graphic design. The ‘new graphics’ of Josef Müller-Brockmann (1914–96) and Max Bill (1908–94) are still extremely well regarded, as is the branding work by Karl Gerstner (b 1930) for IBM and the Búro Destruct (www.burodestruct.net) studio’s typefaces, a feature of many music album covers.
Product design and installation art are Switzerland’s other fortes. It gave the world Europe’s largest urban lounge Click here courtesy of Pipilotti Rist (b 1962) and Cow Parade whereby processions of life-size, painted fibreglass cows trot around the globe. The first 800-head herd had their outing in Zürich in 1998 and stray animals in different garbs continue to lurk around the country. Then there is its flag (see boxed text).
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SCIENCE
Not only do the Swiss have more registered patents and Nobel Prize winners (most in scientific disciplines) per capita than any other nationality, Albert Einstein coined the formula E=mc2 while living in Bern (see Einstein Museum, Click here) and the World Wide Web was born in Geneva at CERN Click here.
Then, of course, there’s the latter’s Large Hadron Collider, a machine that took 13 years to build and ranks as the world’s biggest physics experiment as it attempts to recreate conditions minutes after the big bang Click here.