Postkartengalerie KABINETLI

Travel into the past of the Hinterrhein via picture postcards and cross the pass into the Valle Mesolcina

A small but exquisite private exhibition of antique views of Hinterrhein and the surrounding area. The photographs, from picture postcards, on display mostly date back to the first third of the 20st Century with a focus on the Rheinwald, the Valle Mesolcina and the San Bernar-dino and Splügen passes. The Rheinwald, or the Hinterrhein valleys with the Viamala region, have a rich and varied transit and transport history. It ranges from the rough mule tracks to today’s A13 motorway. Based on language and settlement studies, the village of Hinterrhein is considered the oldest documented Walser settlement in the canton of Graubünden. The German-speaking Walser people, who had immigrated from the Italian Val Formazza (Pomatt in German) over the San Bernardino Pass, colonised the inner Rheinwald in the last third of the 13th century (deeds from 1274, 1277 and 1296). In combination with a guided one, taking a tour of the gallery brings back to life "yesterday's world" and the contrast to today’s world – that of our village, the San Bernardino Pass, the Rheinwald, but also that of its neighbouring valleys (Mesolcina, Vals Valley, Val San Giacomo), with which neighbourly relationships were actively maintained for centuries as a result of the transit system over the passes and mutual economic and family ties (pack animal traffic, horse-drawn post coaches).

The KABINETLI exhibition is itself housed in a contemporary witness, namely in the basement of the Kabinet house, which has been dated by means of dendrochronology to 1374 and was constructed in the blockhouse style roughly 100 years after the immigration of the Walser people over the San Bernardino Pass. Later on, the house was "encased" in half-a-metre-thick quarry stone walls for weather or fire protection. The basement and the “Ställi” (small stable), where ancestors had kept their smaller livestock, were cleared out and rearranged for the exhibition. The Exhibition was opened on 20 September 2020 with a vernissage.

4 Treffer