An electrical promenade : from the Tine bridge to the Hongrin barrage

The Swiss territory - including the Alps – has been deeply modified by hydroelectric energy. From 1890 onwards a true electrical landscape started emerging although its repercussions often went by unnoticed. Barrages, plants, sub plants and conducts are only the more perceptible sign of a more underground change, synonymous with a change in the flow of rivers or the building of tunnels. To read an electrical countryside means becoming conscious of a geography marked by the will of power of the electrical system. The excursion that leads from the shores of the Grande Eau to the Hongrin barrage is in this respect an example: it leads the visitor from the small to the big (and grandiose), makes him discover the logic behind a chain of plants (the energetic system) and allows him to identify the electrical symbols disseminated in the territory.

Michael Jakob : HES professor of landscape architecture at the Engineer school of Lullier and lecturer in the history and the theory of landscapes at the architecture institute of the University of Geneva. He directs the Compara(i)son review, the Paysages collection of the Infolio editions and the Di monte in monte collection of the Tarara editions. He has published, amongst other works, Architecture et électricité (Ed. Du Verseau, 2003), Erménonville, (Ed. De l’Imprimeur, 2002) and L’émergence du paysage (Ed. Infolio, to be published in 2004).