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The colorful houses of Appenzell

1 - The village of Appenzell lies in eastern Switzerland and is the capital of the canton of Appenzell Innerrhoden. It has a population of just over 5,700 and is best known for its brightly painted wooden houses with particularly ornate gables.

2 - There was a time when the houses in Appenzell were as grey and brown as they were everywhere else. But then the daughter of the owner of the Löwen pharmacy married a young man named Johannes Hugentobler. He was a painter.

3 - A few years earlier, he had already decorated the tower of the Catholic parish church in Appenzell. When the tower needed renovating, the parish priest thought they might as well use the scaffolding to make the outside wall a little more colourful. He commissioned Johannes Hugentobler, who painted a twelve-metre-high Saint Maurice on it. The church was dedicated to this saint.

4 - After marrying the pharmacist’s daughter, he asked his father-in-law if he could decorate the pharmacy’s facade. His father-in-law agreed, and Johannes Hugentobler painted numerous pictures of medicinal herbs on the outside wall. These pictures were especially well suited to the character of the building, which housed a pharmacy. This took place in 1931.

5 - It seems that other homeowners in Appenzell liked the young painter’s work too. Hugentobler was also allowed to decorate the two neighboring houses, and in just ten years, numerous houses in Appenzell were shining in the most colorful designs and hues.

6 - Children especially love the house decorated with pictures of children and fairy-tale scenes. Be sure to have a look at this house if you ever visit Appenzell. But the other colourful houses are well worth seeing too, as you can see in the pictures below.

Images: Hamsterkiste