Jun 21, 4:02 PM
The Illusion of the Open Road: Switzerland's Romance with the Sunday Drive
A new exhibition in Bern looks back at the golden age of the automobile, capturing both the naive optimism and the inevitable gridlock of mid-century mobility.
Long before the automobile became an object of environmental guilt and political regulation, it was the ultimate bourgeois trophy. The ALPS Museum in Bern is currently revisiting this era of unapologetic combustion with an exhibition dedicated to the Sunday excursion. Covering the period between the 1920s and the 1980s, the showcase relies on private amateur films to reconstruct a time when driving up a mountain was considered a glamorous weekend activity rather than a logistical nightmare.
Visitors sit on vintage VW bus benches to watch a twenty-minute compilation of historical footage. The screen reveals a wealthy, somewhat naive Switzerland discovering the joys of mass mobility. Families proudly pose next to freshly polished Fiat 500s, VW Beetles, and Opel Kapitäns. Because early film spools allowed for barely three minutes of recording, these amateur directors were forced to be highly selective. They did not capture the mundane reality of travel, but rather heavily curated highlights.
The resulting aesthetic is one of pure, unadulterated optimism. Couples on their honeymoon and families enjoying roadside picnics feature prominently. The culinary reality of these outings—pork chops and canned peas heated on a portable gas grill—perfectly encapsulates the modest charm of the mid-century middle class. Nature itself was largely relegated to the background. As the exhibition illustrates, the great outdoors merely functioned as a scenic wallpaper for the true star of the show: the personal automobile.
A peculiar artifact on display captures the cross-border dynamics of early European tourism. A simple tin of Aromat seasoning sits on a camping table, referencing a persistent petty crime wave at the Gotthard Pass restaurant. According to museum director Beat Hächler, Dutch tourists en route to Italian campsites routinely pocketed the Swiss condiment. It is a charming anecdote from a time when international travel involved modest theft rather than massive bureaucratic oversight.
Yet, the exhibition does not entirely romanticize the past. The promise of the open road has always been somewhat of an illusion. The museum includes footage of a massive traffic jam from 1962, stretching endlessly from Airolo to Ambrì-Piotta. The gridlock of the past looks remarkably identical to the agonizing queues that paralyze the Gotthard route during contemporary holiday weekends. The dream of individual freedom on four wheels inevitably led to the collective reality of a collapsed transport infrastructure.
Fortunately, the curators have resisted the modern urge to lecture their audience. Hächler explicitly avoids raising a moralizing index finger. He acknowledges the eventual disillusionment associated with mass motorization, from childhood carsickness to the sheer overwhelming volume of modern traffic. The museum director notes that the exhibition intentionally preserves the relentless cheerfulness of the historical footage, trusting the audience to evaluate the current state of mobility on their own. It is a refreshingly subtle approach for a cultural institution, allowing the public to draw independent conclusions about the price of progress.
Written by Thorben Thiede thorben.thiede@alpineweekly.com
