page_title: Architecture of Switzerland
section_title: Pre-Romanesque
hierarchical_section_title: Architecture of Switzerland / Pre-Romanesque
caption_attribution_description: Benediktinerkloster St. Johann im Val Müstair
context_page_description: The architecture of Switzerland was influenced by its location astride major trade routes, along with diverse architectural traditions of the four national languages. Romans and later Italians brought their monumental and vernacular architecture north over the Alps, meeting the Germanic and German styles coming south and French influences coming east. Additionally, Swiss mercenary service brought architectural elements from other lands back to Switzerland. All the major styles including ancient Roman, Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, Neoclassical, Art Nouveau, Modern architecture and Post Modern are well represented throughout the country. The founding of the Congrès International d'Architecture Moderne in La Sarraz and the work of Swiss-born modern architects such as Le Corbusier helped spread Modern architecture throughout the world.
  The relative isolation of villages in the Alpine foothills, the Alps and the Jura mountains as well as different languages led to great diversity in the vernacular style. Due to differing traditions, climate and building materials, villages in each region are distinctly different.
context_section_description: The Pre-Romanesque period is considered to stretch from the emergence of the Merovingian kingdom in about 500 to the beginning of the 11th century Romanesque period, though there is considerable overlap.  During the early centuries of this period, the area that would become Switzerland was sparsely populated and almost nothing remains of any buildings from the period between 500 and the late 8th century.  During the Carolingian Renaissance of the 8th and 9th centuries, many new monasteries and churches sprung up across Western Europe.  Carolingian architecture borrowed heavily from Early Christian and Byzantine architecture and helped lead to the Romanesque style in the following centuries.  To begin expanding their power into the deep forests and isolated mountain valleys, the Carolingian kings established several monasteries in Switzerland.
  One well preserved example of this style in Switzerland is Saint John Abbey, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, which was probably founded around 775 either on orders of Charlemagne or his Bishop in Chur.  Many of the frescoes in the chapel are from the first half of the 9th century.  Another well known example of Carolingian architecture is the World Heritage Site Abbey of St. Gall which, while it was rebuilt in the Baroque style between 1755 and 1768, is based on the much older Carolingian monastery.  The Abbey library of Saint Gall contains around 2,100 manuscripts from the 8th to the 15th centuries including the Plan of St. Gall, the only surviving major architectural drawing from the 6th to the 13th centuries.  The Plan is a drawing of a proposed, but never built, Benedictine monastery.
caption: The Saint John Abbey
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