Historical past of Structure at EHL: la “Ferme”

So why did the Metropolis of Lausanne determine to construct a farm at this specific location? The reply is printed in Anne Radeff’s guide entitled Lausanne et ses campagnes au 17e siècle, which sheds gentle on the financial system in Lausanne and outlying areas within the seventeenth century⁴. Her analysis gives an in depth clarification of the city’s enterprise mannequin, which used huge territories abutting the town as a income by means of tenant farming.

The farm, constructed on land belonging to the town within the early 18th century, is subsequently part of this financial system and households of farmers would proceed to function it technology after technology. The EHL farm is a undoubtedly an essential instance of the development of a farm/residence mandated by the Metropolis of Lausanne within the 18th century.

Swiss Resort Affiliation takes the choice to depart the Avenue de Cour

On the finish of the Sixties, EHL was prospering and noticed enrolment climb to about 600 college students, half of whom had been off doing an internship overseas. Quite a few additions to the campus on Avenue de Cour had been made, akin to an formidable outbuilding in 1970. Nonetheless, the college was cramped on the town and eyed a really daring growth. Discussions about overhauling the curriculum, together with shifting from a 3- to a 4-semester program, underscored the shortage of area. Such a modification would change EHL’s educational supply and would require additional lecture rooms, to not point out the numerous extra college students who can be on the campus at any given time.

On June 16, 1971, the Société Suisse des Hôteliers, because the governing physique of the École hôtelière was identified on the time, determined to drag up stakes and depart the Avenue de Cour campus. That is why administration, led by Eric Gerber, director from 1968 to 1973, began to prospect for brand spanking new lands to deal with the école hôtelière of tomorrow. They usually used all manners of communication to discover a new house, together with advertisements within the native paper!

The varsity acquired a number of fascinating affords together with from the close by city of Puidoux-Chexbres. After intensive negotiations, the Metropolis of Lausanne gained the bid in 1972 and the Société Suisse des Hôteliers determined to arrange the college in Chalet-à-Gobet, on the excessive northern tip of Lausanne.

The Nouvelle École, because it was known as, was constructed on a leafy lot that stretched alongside the Route de Berne on the fringe of a forest. The acquisition of the land got here with all constructions and outbuildings positioned on that land, which meant the La Ferme was in personal palms for the primary time in its lengthy historical past.

Nonetheless, the farm stood tall because the land was reworked and new buildings sprouted up.

Removed from being forged apart, the farm grew to become the precise and symbolic heart of the Nouvelle École. After some renovation work, it grew to become a hub of leisure and leisure for college kids, a narrative that was picked up by media shops on the time.

In 1974, there was a serious shock: the Nouvelle École’s building fee filed to demolish the farm as a result of pricey renovations had been wanted, the constructing was unfit for its new use and the farm’s type was deemed antiquated given the fashionable campus. In January 1975, the fee even employed an organization to do the demolition work.

However La Ferme wasn’t about to go down and not using a battle and, in Might 1975, the fee’s demolition allow was rejected by the native authorities. The farm was to be saved as specified within the constructing allow that had initially been approved.

New EHL campus, new farm

Building on the brand new campus started in 2017, which required the farm to be dismantled solely to be put again collectively once more in the midst of the brand new campus. The brand new-and-improved farm was unveiled on July 2022 within the presence of Swiss president Ignazio Cassis. Spacious and trendy, it presently homes a café—however not simply any café, a Montreux Jazz Café, from the well-known music competition created in 1967 on the shores of Lake Geneva by Claude Nobs, an EHL alumnus!

The brand new farm is equivalent to the previous constructing however with new supplies. Charming historic particulars, such because the inexperienced sandstone window casings and doorways, had been preserved (as required by the Lausanne authorities in command of heritage websites).

With its historical past made up of ups and downs, La Ferme is the epitome of the expression “turning our weaknesses right into a energy”. Maybe cumbersome for the development fee of the Nouvelle École within the Seventies, it has at present develop into an important landmark and the image of the Lausanne campus.

<sup>1. GLAUSER, Daniel, ROLAND, Isabelle, Recensement architectural du Canton de Vaud, Path générale des immeubles et du patrimoine, Monuments et websites, 1993, fiche n°Cojo 18

2. ROLAND, Isabelle, Lausanne ancienne ferme de Cojonnex propriété de l’École hôtelière de Lausanne. Étude historique et architecturale, Lausanne : EHL, 2015

3. Ibidem, p. 1 – 3

4. RADEFF, Anne, Lausanne et ses campagnes au 17e siècle, Lausanne : Presses Centrales Lausanne, 1980</sup>

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