Guido Balmer

Guido Balmer is the communications officer for the department of regional planning, environment, mobility and infrastruture of the canton of Fribourg and a freelance communications professional.

The history of urbanisation and affordable housing in Switzerland

Guido Balmer 05.10.2023 Housing shortages first became a hot topic in Switzerland in the second half of the 19th century. At the time, the issue was referred to as the ‘workers’ housing question’. It presented a challenge to municipal governments and even led to riots.

The cramped living conditions of this home worker family in Zurich meant a single room was used as a kitchen, living room and bedroom. Postcard from the Swiss home working exhibition, circa 1900.

Beat Breu’s magnificent victory, in miniature

Guido Balmer 29.07.2022 The history of Swiss cycling is full of thrilling stories. One of these is Beat Breu’s historic victory on the Alpe d’Huez in 1982. Much has already been written about this win. What very few people know, though, is that Beat Breu immortalised his victorious ride in meticulous detail in a terrain model.

Detail of Beat Breu’s own model depicting his victory at the Alpe d’Huez on 20 July 1982.

Rows of trees with many different functions

Guido Balmer 13.07.2022 Our cousins to the north and west boast hundreds of them: tree-lined avenues. Rows of trees are a defining feature of many French and German cities and rural landscapes. Here in Switzerland, avenues have never had the same significance. But they’ve always been here, though. One particular avenue of trees has recently been crowned Switzerland’s “Landscape of the Year 2022”.

Postcard depicting an avenue in the Rhone Valley, 1933.

From “glaring difference” to a system of units

Guido Balmer 08.04.2022 Measuring with the same yardstick: for a long time, this was the exception rather than the rule. Until the end of the 19th century, a dizzying array of different units was used in Switzerland for weighing and measuring. Even the time of day varied from one place to the next.

At a 15th-century market: there was no uniform measure but rather a jumble of different measurement units. Illustration of a market scene in a manuscript by Nikolaus von Oresme, circa 1453.

When the bicycle was the public’s darling

Guido Balmer 18.02.2022 Cycling is booming, thanks to coronavirus and e-bikes. But the height of the cycling craze was in the early decades of the 20th century. Back then, the bicycle ruled the streets, and in fact in 1913 the view in the Federal Parliament was that: “The world today would not be able to manage without the bicycle.”

Man with a bicycle, making his way through a wildflower meadow in the Bernese Oberland. In the background is the Niesen, around 1933.

Swiss nationals in the Resistance

Guido Balmer 24.11.2021 Thousands of Swiss people helped liberate France from German occupation. Hundreds of them were punished by Switzerland. They shall now be rehabilitated.