Alexander Rechsteiner

Works at the PR department of the Swiss national museum and holds an M A in modern English literature and political science.

E-Mail: alexander.rechsteiner@nationalmuseum.ch

Wheel to wheel

Alexander Rechsteiner 15.07.2022 Highs and lows are part of everyday life in Swiss cycling – both figuratively and literally. The sport of cycling can look back on a history filled with anecdotes.

Koblet and Kübler at the 1951 Tour de Suisse. Kübler won the Tour ahead of Koblet.

The first federal military training school

Alexander Rechsteiner 04.07.2022 Twice a year, around 8,000 to 10,000 young men and women begin their course of instruction at Rekrutenschule (RS), the Swiss Army’s military training school. The “RS” run by the Swiss Armed Forces is nearly as old as the federal state itself. The first Rekrutenschule was conducted in Winterthur on 4 September 1849.

A dragoon with the vet in front of a riding school, ca. 1855.

Switzerland’s first railway

Alexander Rechsteiner 07.03.2022 On 15 June 1844, a railway train ran on Swiss territory for the first time. The train didn’t go from Baden to Zurich; instead, it ran a distance of about two kilometres from the French border to the city of Basel.

For the construction and operation of the first railway on Swiss soil, the railway company had to adhere to detailed specifications. Illustration: Marco Heer

Switzerland: a land of paradoxes

Alexander Rechsteiner 04.02.2022 It can be hard to get a true picture of something when you’re only seeing it from the inside – to really understand it, you need the view from outside as well. Take the Swiss mentality, for example. On closer inspection, our mindset turns out to be a multifaceted mirror reflecting a country filled with paradoxes and contradictions.

Postcard featuring the Matterhorn, 1980.

Silvesterkläuse both beautiful and ugly

Alexander Rechsteiner 31.12.2021 Every 31 December and 13 January, bizarre and fantastical figures rove the hinterland of the Canton of Appenzell Ausserrhoden. Some wear ornate headdresses, others grotesque animal faces. These are the "Silvesterkläuse" that usher out the old year and ring in the new.

‘Schöne’ Silvesterkläuse, or New Year mummers, doing the rounds in Urnäsch, sometime between 1975-1985.

Switzerland’s first motorway

Alexander Rechsteiner 27.12.2021 In summer 1955, Switzerland’s first motorway was opened in Lucerne. It was the first piece of the puzzle of what is now the national road network, today covering around 2,254 kilometres.

From cottage industries to the home office

Alexander Rechsteiner 29.10.2021 Doing your job within your own four walls isn’t a phenomenon of the computer age. But while the home office in most cases entails a better quality of life, the type of working from home that many people did before industrialisation was an exploitative form of working.

Working and living in the same place: view of an Aargau farmhouse parlour around 1840.

Birth of the Warriors

Alexander Rechsteiner 17.09.2021 Stone stelas from Neolithic Europe tell of a new social class: the heavily armed warriors who were supposed to protect the property of the elites.

Various human-shaped stelas with jewelry, weapons and tools.