"Progress" destroys idyll
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Rüti, 1956: My father took this picture during a Sunday walk. Sabine Wunderlin -
Rüti, 2006: The family posing for a picture in the same place. Sabine Wunderlin -
Country lane in Rüti, 1968. Sabine Wunderlin -
Rüti, 1981: Newly constructed houses. Sabine Wunderlin -
The restaurant on Kreuzstrasse, 2005. Sabine Wunderlin -
Housing on Kreuzstrasse, 2005. Sabine Wunderlin -
View of Stein, 1957. Sabine Wunderlin -
View of Stein, 2006. Sabine Wunderlin -
The lane to Waldeck, 1968. Sabine Wunderlin -
The road to Waldeck (A3 motorway underpass), 1981. Sabine Wunderlin -
Fields with a smokestack from a Roche plant in the background, 1982. Sabine Wunderlin -
A new housing development in the same place (note the Roche smokestack in the same place), 2006. Sabine Wunderlin -
A pond on a farm, 1968. Sabine Wunderlin -
The same place but the pond has been filled in to make way for the A3 motorway, 1981. Sabine Wunderlin -
A field of barley, 1988. Sabine Wunderlin -
Later as an industrial site, 2001. Sabine Wunderlin -
The house her father grew up in on Zürcherstrasse, 1988. Sabine Wunderlin -
The house had to make way for two new homes at the same address, 2006. Sabine Wunderlin
Photographer Sabine Wunderlin grew up in Stein, canton Aargau. Her father was a teacher at the village school and encouraged her at a young age to take pictures of how the place was being transformed in the name of progress.
In the early 1970s the A3 motorway connecting Basel and Zurich was built. Places Sabine went to play with her friends disappeared, along with their names.
Sabine continued to take pictures and used a portfolio of them as part of her successful application to an art school in Zurich. Today she works for a Swiss publisher, and is active nationwide but has remained loyal to her village.
She is still registering changes to the village, which represents changes to the landscape across the country.
The image of beautiful Switzerland that many Swiss have in their heads has, in many parts of the country, long disappeared.
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