531 – Farmhouse from Villars-Bramard Vaud, 1800

The wide farmhouse with its stately doors and windows makes quite an impression. Older farms in the border region between the Vaud and Fribourg are modest. In 1800–1801 the farmer Jean-Fancois Fattebert built a house here that was three times as large as its predecessor. Colour and decorative elements gave the new building the elegance of an urban bourgeois house.

In 1536 Berne had conquered the Vaud and administered it as vassal state ever since. Bernese bailiffs collected taxes here and in Argovia. Other federal states also enslaved their neighbours. Thurgovia, Lower Valais, Sarganserland and many other regions were vassalised. In 1798 French revolutionary troops invaded and the old Confederation fell apart like a house of cards. Vassals became equal-righted members of the Helvetic Republic. Many Vaudois farmers who after 1780 had acquired wealth due to innovations in agriculture now risked new houses with imposing facades. They thus demonstrated their newly gained position as free citizens, among other things by such building projects. They expressed their pride in the colour of their window shutters – green for free Vaud!