
Come on in and look around the homes of our Federal Councillors!
There was a time before mobile phones, a time when press photographers were the eyes of an entire nation. Many of the images they captured are now forgotten. Among these are the ‘home stories’ portraying current and former Swiss Federal Councillors in their homes.




Roger Bonvin and Hans-Peter Tschudi at their desks. Swiss National Museum / ASL


Books and objets d’art make the parlour a smartly presented room: Friedrich Traugott and Helene Rosalie Wahlen pose with books and a portrait, while Hans Streuli examines a stained glass painting given as a memento of his time as a member of Zurich’s cantonal government. Swiss National Museum / ASL


Max Petitpierre, and Roger Bonvin and his wife seated on furniture decorated with a floral pattern. Swiss National Museum / ASL
The press photo agency ASL

Actualités Suisses Lausanne (ASL) was founded by Roland Schlaefli in 1954, and until its closure in 1999 was the leading press photo agency in western Switzerland. In 1973, Schlaefli also took over the archive of Agentur Presse Diffusion Lausanne (PDL), founded in 1937. The holdings of the two agencies comprise approximately six million images (negatives, prints, slides). In the broad range of subjects covered, there is a focus on federal politics, sport and western Switzerland. The agency opted not to take the step into the digital age. Since 2007, the archives of ASL and PDL have been held by the Swiss National Museum. The blog presents, in a loose chronology, images and photo sequences that particularly stood out when the collections were being recatalogued.