Tag: switzerland

Metz, late January 2026

We travelled by train from Zurich to the French provincial city of Metz on a cold Monday morning in late January forewarned with knowledge that the journey might not be easy. We couldn’t buy a ticket beyond Luxemburg which meant a quick sprint to a ticket office to buy new ones in order to meet the tight connection. An inefficiency that felt out of character for the Swiss, a little absurd the ticket officer agreed with me but resigned to matters outside his control, to make matters worse the train stopped mysteriously outside of Luxemburg for several minutes adding to a growing sense of anxiety. Up until this moment we had been both amused by the precise nature of the Swiss Railways and alarmed at its steep cost; a day trip to Bern for example took about an hour on the train and cost three hundred dollars for two.  

We crept out of town, gliding past the shiny corporate offices surrounding Zurich’s station then humming by factories with unfamiliar brand names and the low lying, drab suburban towns, depressing in any society, melancholic places which would make anyone question their existence. Paradoxically the more prosperous the suburbs the more vacuous they feel, the new cars and spotless buildings, the lack of vandalism and trash making it less rather than more human, the dispiriting newness and cleanliness of it all, I had to stop looking, to stop imagining the ponderous lives within those boxes.

Travelling by train in Switzerland is clearly a serious business, not the nostalgic, sometimes charming (and regularly frustrating) experience found in most places in the world. I sensed an air of purpose in the other passengers, laptop cases, business casual attire and, for a fleeting moment, I felt a pang of jealousy until I remembered the code napoleon and all the expert-comptables at the core of their bureaucracy, it was soon forgotten. If we felt the need to speak, we did so in whispers, it all felt very professional and hushed for just a train journey and I was a little embarrassed by the bags we had managed to accumulate and store amateurishly, luggage that had started the journey in Philadelphia as regulation Carry Ons but had now mysteriously grown to include several plastic shopping bags marking out our role as undisciplined tourists.

It’s a strange landscape between Switzerland and South Eastern France. Largely flat and industrialized, on the surface it has little going for it other than its location in the very physical center of Europe sitting on the vulnerable edges of Germany, Luxemburg and France. I guessed that many of these self-important people on the train were civil servants going onto meetings in Luxemburg, Strasburg or Metz, places regularly fought over, changing hands for centuries with alarming fluidity; traded in deals, absorbed by wars now uncomfortably sitting on or close to the borders of their aggressors. Borders that still exist I suspect now more to provide tax domiciles for companies and individuals than to define the region by its various historical cultural identities. 

Metz isn’t the obvious place to vacation in late January. It is a handsome rather than beautiful city, it has several crown jewels including the cathedral with its extraordinary stained glass and the winding streets of the old town all of which was surely worth fighting for. One senses humor in its character, or a detached irony, surely necessary for a place that has changed hands between Rome, Germany and France, a little like the detachment that you sometimes find in orphaned children who had travelled between surrogate parents, a coping mechanism that deals with life but without excessive passion or optimism. France apparently recognizes this and to boost its confidence has both expanded its admirably cared for, sometime grand, administrative offices and its culture presence thanks to the outpost of the Pompidou Center build in 2010 by the architect’s Shigeru Ban and Jean de Gastines. We are here partly to see this museum and the happy coincidence of a Maurizio Cattelan show. The main reason however was to stay at a new hotel designed by Philippe Stark called Maison Heler which is a drab nine story block having the surreal addition of a typical nineteenth century house on its roof, I had read about it and wanted to see it myself.

Stark occupies an unusual position in the design world. Finding his stride in the 1980’s was a fruitful time in this sector of the arts, design coming late to post modernism, about two decades on the heels of literature, art, dance and architecture. Its oversimplistic to state that post-modern design had a fixed start date, even lazier to claim that the December 1980 meeting hosted by Ettore Sottsass and Barbara Radie, inviting several of their colleagues to form a collective named Memphis, was its birthplace. Never the less the products when shown at the Milan Fair was a moment of anarchy in a formal and dry world that needed an injection of fun and frivolity, challenging our notions of good taste. Modernism was slick, minimal and functional, technically advanced but cold. A new group of designers which included the members of Memphis as well as Ron Arad, in the UK and Philippe Starck in France began to seen, argued about and sometimes ridiculed by the press. It was thrilling to see the hand of the designers in the work, the weld marks, the improvisation and imperfections, reminded us that great design is not an outcome of flawless manufacturing but something more vital and urgent; by participating in it, supporting it, owning thoughtfully constructed objects you become part of a cultural moment, you choose to have a stake in our civilization. I was one of the handful of fans who would hang around Arad’s Neal Street studio in the early 1980’s on a Sunday evening to watch generic products like lamps and turntables being deconstructed and then remade with poured concrete, absolutely fascinated by what I was seeing. 

Some of the derision was justified. Designers from the very beginning have claimed to want their work to be inexpensive, simple and enjoyed by everyone, a mantra heard in the corridors of the Bauhaus, in the cottage industries of William Morris, in the boardroom of Habitat and is one of the avowed aims of Starck who claims the term “democratic” design. It’s laughable, in almost all cases there is (and perhaps should be) a premium for quality design and arguably only a few businesses have occasionally come close to this ideal such as Muji and IKEA. When Arad was making his revolutionary work it was unaffordable, it was much later in life when I could actually own it. A young designer today might look at the products made in the 1980’s as being vulgar and ridiculous, there is a return to the ideals of modernism, or at least rational design frequently seen through the lens of sustainability.

Starck has continued his creative journey working on the fringes of interior decoration, industrial design, applied and contemporary art and even literature. His is a restless spirit valuing creativity above all, constantly crossing the boundaries of design disciplines. The hotel in Metz is apparently based upon a novel he had written about a young imaginative boy whose life was transformed when the monolithic hotel structure rose from the earth and lifted his home onto the roof. Absurdity or poetry? The hotel carries on this fiction, decorated with examples of the young creative Manfred Heler’s inventions, photographs which were in fact taken from the center for scientific research in Paris and models of his imaginary experiments. It’s easy to dismiss this all as nonscience until you witness the quality of the execution and the sincerity behind it. The details are everything, both God and the Devil are in them, they add up in this instance to an unmistakable work of conceptual art, one that can be occupied and which functions effectively, it was reassuring for example to see the restaurant spaces occupied and being busy and enjoyed. If he is guilty of anything it is his overt displays of wit, charm, engineering skill and elegance, distinctly French characteristics, that seems to run through anything he touches, from yacht design, to architecture, motorcycles and the best known household furniture and products he places his stamp on.  We had a civilized dinner in his restaurant on our first evening, local food and wine from Lorriane, happy to see other guests who had dressed for the occasion despite the cold winter’s night, living comfortably within this piece of modern surrealism.       

After a few days we took the train to Cologne, staying in a former Nunery. The further north we travelled the more disruptive and free the people seemed to become. By the time we reached Bonn it was almost refreshingly unruly on the train and when I heard a deranged homeless man scream in the station, his voice harrowing in the echoing hallways, I almost wanted to shout back in encouragement, such was the relief to be out of the perfection of Switzerland and bourgeoise France. When left the station under the crushing presence of the cathedral it felt like being at home rather than a foreign country, the urbanity of Cologne has echoes of New York and London while keeping its own cultural history alive. 

We chose traditional eating houses many of which were linked to breweries when we dined out and I relished the familiar heartiness of the German cuisine. We then drove with Mary’s long term friend Claudia down to the Eifel region where her family keeps a cabin in the woods. Here I spend my time feeding the woodburning stove and watching the two friends (“like a Lord” I was reminded of from time to time) but in truth helpless in the face of such domestic competence. Some of the time reflecting on the nature of long term friendships and regret at those of my own that I had lost touch with or let down. At others times watching the chaos of birds at the feeder at the window, swooping and swerving, moments of consideration for others of their species and the occasional malevolent appearance of a much larger woodpecker aware of its clear superiority.         

On the return to Cologne several days later we took a detour to visit an architectural wonder that Claudia wanted to show us. There was a family connection that I didn’t completely follow but the jist was that a highly religious female distant relative wanted a place to pray in the countryside. The commission was won by the Swiss architect Peter Zumther whose creation, known as the Bruder Klaus Feldkepelle, was a collaborative project with local farmers and members of the community. It required 112 trees to be placed together in the shape of a wig-wam, then a brutalist structure was formed by pouring concrete over the it before setting the tree’s alight. This created a burned core which allowed light in from the top and exposed the tree’s charred outline.  The structure was remarkable to walk into, rough and still blackened, some claim it still smells of burnt wood, water had formed a pool from the opening and the light rested on the stone work in places forcing you to contemplate periodically the sometimes course beauty of nature.  We saw it on a perfect day, wet and opaque, a wide tonality of green and grey, a landscape of occasional lonely tree’s friendless and bare, if you ever felt the need to get close to your God, this might be a good place to do so.   

Switzerland, January 2026

We arrived in Zurich a few days ago, thrust into this mid-winter monochrome landscape where you might be forgiven for thinking you had stepped unwittingly into a 1940s movie. The city’s sound has not changed in decades; the protest from the trams as they squeeze through its narrow streets and the dull, mournful church bells which cast the city in a somber light as today they were ringing to acknowledge the deaths a week ago of forty, mainly young, people in a resort in Crans-Montana, three hours away. Since arriving, it has snowed every day with varying degrees of enthusiasm; now was the most aggressive, with winds that tore across the Zurichsee, bending the willows and scattering the seagulls, leaving only myself and a few other hardy locals to witness the stark beauty of the moment. The small sailboats added to the mournful soundtrack drifting across the icy water, their pale, hollow bells provoking an unreliable moment of nostalgia; one that might lazily be called déjà vu, a moment that was either truly remembered or perhaps one that existed in some celluloid version of the past, a film or a photograph; it’s hard now to tell, but distinctly and unmistakably northern European in winter time.

Across the lake, the buildings came in and out of focus thanks to the blankets of snow, ghostlike in their lack of definition, so were the young families who momentarily appeared through the haze, children in their arctic spacesuits while their wary parents looked on, across to the north where the city’s ornate churches continued with their melancholic message, not convincingly one of either spirituality or poetry but certainly obedience.

It is this Swiss characteristic that I always forget until I am here. The agonizing wait at pedestrian traffic lights with others, watching passively an empty road but not crossing until we are told to by the green light. It’s to keep order, it’s for the children to learn, it’s to protect ourselves from ourselves; more than that, it is perhaps key to understanding the Swiss character, one of pragmatism, one that is a little grim and overly analytical but with a deep appreciation of order and control. It’s hardly surprising that there are so many direct flights to Asia, to Thailand in particular, where a certain chaos, a certain discord is guaranteed. In the past when I worked closely with Swiss businessmen and had long nights drinking beers with them, I heard stories.

Alongside this sense of safety and comfort is a staggering opulence. Because our trip is funded by a weak dollar, eating out is rarely an option. However, on our first evening, tired from a flight from Heathrow, we went to a charming local restaurant where the bill, when it finally arrived after a sparse dinner of starters and wine, was alarming. One cannot fault the kindness and hospitality, but we were left reeling, wondering how anyone could afford to eat out. But they do, we noticed during our evening walks, restaurants full of prosperous-looking people. The same feeling of disbelief was with me while walking through our local neighborhood, which is populated with large villas, many of which are now offices for companies that seem to offer global financial, consultancy, and management services, each driveway tightly parked with large Mercedes SUVs and Porsches.

The casual visitor asks how did this small, landlocked nation become so wealthy. The official answer: a nation of hardworking, serious, and well-educated people, many multilingual; a nation without enemies and hence the lack of a massive defense budget; one with a history that doesn’t take sides or have territorial ambitions; one that didn’t fall into the trap of colonization like the UK, Holland, Portugal, and Spain. Its long-term political strategy of being agnostic to world events has protected its economy from boom and busts and from massive financial outpourings; instead, it has benefited (some might say cynically) from other nations’ wars and conflicts, its banking sector seen as a safe, discreet place to secure money and goods. Surely a vast amount of wealth has risen from interest and storage charges from the world’s assets parked here. Its manufacturing sector has focused on quality, and its tourist industry has capitalized on the beauty of its landscape. Yet this self-containment, its insularity, has both admirers and detractors; it bothers some, this history of turning its back on the world’s conflicts, its agnostic worldview.

I have a little firsthand experience of how business is conducted in Switzerland. Many years ago, the American company I worked for was “merged” with a Swiss business; that was the official story. In fact, the Swiss company had been acquired by a much larger German organization, which gave it the authority to buy the company I worked for and integrate the two businesses. The inevitable culture clashes provided both grim comedy and countless examples of Stockholm syndrome. There was a crude joke circulating at the time; the gist of which was that the American company couldn’t accurately account for the profits that it was making while the Swiss company could tell you to the penny how many losses it was incurring. It spoke to the self-absorption and bureaucracy of the European entity, one whose primary focus was apparently on administration as opposed to innovation and enterprise.

During that time of upheaval, strict rules on organization and roles were a little shocking for us in the USA, and the general observation was that the Swiss saw the business like a clock, with each individual completing small, clearly defined tasks and punishing those who wanted to do something better or different; perhaps illustrating both a stilted understanding of humanity and a cultural misunderstanding over the nature of conflict and dissent within groups, probably the most valuable asset any organization can have. There is nothing new to this thinking; travel back six hundred years to this part of the world and you would find the notion of being “individualistic” abhorrent and likely fatal. Everyone had to be defined by trade or family and usually both; who you reported to, who owned you and made decisions for you was unambiguous. Stepping out of this bondage would incur serious punishment, even death, and so it was easiest to conform, to accept your role no matter how mundane.

It is a country with deep folk art and cultural beliefs. Walking around any of the cities, there are examples of local myths and legends painted on walls and found in public statues. They are a little frightening to children and adults who had not been raised on these stories, for us, there is an alarming cruelty and violence in their message. Yet perhaps the most potent of all myths about Switzerland is its natural protection from its sometimes aggressive neighbors thanks to its topography, the formidable mountain ranges that over the past few centuries have prevented hostile invasion. Today, believing this is surely the greatest risk, technology has moved on in this atomic age. There is a healthy oblivion to all this in the character of the Swiss. We took a day trip with a guide to a local mountain resort where we donned snow boots and walked vigorously up a mountain for an hour or so until, out of breath, we suggested finding the local restaurant. The landscape was beautiful enough to feel unreal, an artificiality to the snow-covered mountains and strangely in the recent animal markings in the pure snow; unreasonably, it seemed hard to believe they existed within such perfection. Our trail was also shared with skiers, on this day teenage children in bright, spotless outfits, fearless as they sped down the slopes at alarming velocity, apparently deeply content in this safe European home.