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More than a destination for Gümmeler: Pass roads have a historical value and Uri now wants to take this into account.
A venerable stone wall that has been poured with concrete or an unsightly block that juts out in the middle of the road to the Susten Pass: Such architectural mistakes can be found in abundance along the Urner pass roads. The canton now finds that they are not worthy of their historical significance.
After all, these roads have been used for centuries. Sources show that the route over the Gotthard has been in use since the 13th century. About Napoleon’s troops, for example, who fought a battle with Alexander Suworow’s men in the Schöllenen Gorge in 1799 and destroyed the Devil’s Bridge in the process.
Don’t spoil the landscape
In the future, more attention should be paid to this legacy when a renovation is pending. Thanks to a new design concept, the preservation of monuments should be able to have a say when construction work is due on mountain passes. “It is important to us that the landscape in the canton of Uri is not spoiled by bad street design,” says monument conservator Thomas Brunner.
The good examples
He and his colleagues have recorded how to proceed when renovating bridges, retaining walls, drainage channels or crash barriers. They have collected examples in a corresponding documentation – bad ones as well as good ones.
Granite as a natural material
Brunner cites the retaining walls in the Schöllenen Gorge, the gateway to the Gotthard Pass, as a good example. When these walls were modified to widen the street, consideration would have been given to the building fabric from the 1950s. “This renovation was a success,” said the monument conservator.
The bad examples
This can be achieved by working with original building materials. “The historic walls are often built with stones from the area, so they fit naturally into the landscape.”
Conversely, a lot of repair work failed when more modern material was used. “Concrete, for example, can become an unwanted focal point.” It happened, for example, that the complex historical column stones that delimit the course of the street were replaced by simple concrete barriers. That stands out in a landscape shaped by granite rocks.
Uri especially on duty
The new concept aims to prevent such renovations in the future. Although this is primarily a matter of monument preservation, it is accepted by the cantonal civil engineering office. “Everyone has an interest in carefully renovated pass roads,” says monument conservator Brunner.
It pays to keep a good eye on the streets. “They all have their own historical value – for military history, tourism history or economic history.” The canton of Uri, with its many mountain passes, has a particular duty to pay attention to how the building fabric is handled.