Church

The small, cozy wooden church with 160 seats was built with contributions from the canton and the Synod Council, as well as countless volunteer hours from the local community, and was consecrated in 1940.

The building materials primarily come from the region, such as the timber from the municipality’s forests. The stairs and masonry were hewn and used from granite stones found in boulders that were carried by the Aare Glacier from the Grimsel during the Ice Age. An Italian, along with his helpers, crafted the stair treads, floor slabs, and masonry stones from the irregular blocks. In the forest behind the Mattenhaus at the open-air museum, we can still find a split boulder today.

The Catholic church tower at the Reformed church is a unique structure. Such steep tower roofs are not easy to construct, which is why a roofer from Saxony was hired. As a Catholic, he took the liberty of adding a cross to the tower upon completion. For this reason, the Protestant church in the region is the only one that features a cross on its roof instead of a rooster.

With great dedication, the local Women’s Association continuously beautified the small church whenever the financial situation allowed. The altar cloth made of burgundy velvet was personally embroidered by the president, Elisabeth Flühmann-von Bergen. In the late 1940s, the women of Wyler had the church clock installed and also donated a small organ, which was replaced in 2005 by an attractive home organ.

In the year 2000, a legacy was bequeathed to the church. Seven wood sculptors came together to create wooden representations of the Beatitudes, inspired by the relief in the chancel. However, the original texts were too long, so they opted for the dialect version of the Bernese Bible translation and adapted it into the local dialect. This resulted in the wall relief at the gallery, which each sculptor was able to shape according to their own taste.

During the time of the first establishments of open-air museums in Scandinavia, attempts were also made in Switzerland to create an open-air museum. However, neither the plans for a “medieval Swiss town” at the Bern Historical Museum nor the discussions about whether the Swiss National Museum in Zurich should be complemented by rural structures led to any significant developments. It wasn’t until 1963 that the Federal Council appointed an expert commission to examine the establishment of a national open-air museum more closely. The site of Ballenberg was found to be the most convincing compared to other locations.

In 1978, the Swiss Open-Air Museum Ballenberg opened its doors. At the opening, 16 museum objects were presented; two years later, this number had already increased to 25, and by 1985, there were already 61 buildings. Today, more than 100 residential and ancillary buildings are situated on Ballenberg. The scientific concept of the open-air museum is based on the research conducted by the “Action Farmhouse Research in Switzerland,” which allows for a targeted and broadly supported selection of the most important characteristic house, farm, and settlement forms in Switzerland.

The open-air museum is a significant cultural, scientific, and tourist institution that attracts around 250,000 visitors from around the world each year. With nearly 200 employees who work at the museum during the season from mid-April to the end of October, it is also one of the most significant employers in the region.