9 Houses – 1 Hotel – 700 Years of History

Just imagine who might have lived in your room hundreds of years ago... Over the years, these nine medieval townhouses have been home to gentry, merchants, artisans and heads of the local guilds, all of whom left their mark by building, living in, decorating and modifying their residences.

But to preserve these nine disparate historic houses while transforming them into a luxury modern hotel was a challenge – to which the well-known Swiss architect Tilla Theus had the answer. She linked the houses with interconnecting passageways, creating fluent transitions where walls once separated one house from the next. Chrome, steel and glass were added to complement the old stone walls and wooden beams. Theus selected a particular type of wood and stone for each house. The conversion lasted a decade and was completed in 1995. More than 1,000 conservation experts, builders and designers helped fuse these nine entities into a single hotel. Renovations were done for the purpose of preservation, adding new elements where technically necessary. This was the only way to retain the physical substance and core of the buildings, and so to conserve their 700-year-old spirit. And what does “Widder”, or “ram”, have to do with all this? Quite simply, the hotel’s name refers to the “Zum Widder” guild of butchers that has had its home in nearby Widdergasse since 1401.