Visionary promotes sustainable “Celtic” future

Markus Sommer stands above his Celtic house in the Guggisberg hills swissinfo.ch

On any given day of the week, school classes and business managers make the long journey out into the Swiss countryside to see a house lacking all modern conveniences and to learn from its builder.

On this day, a group of schoolchildren have made the trip to Markus Sommer’s farm in the hilly Guggisberg region south of Bern. They have had to change from their train to a bus and walk the last few hundred metres up a steep slope to the one-room house.

Sommer places more wood on the fire, situated in the middle of the room, before beginning: “This is the only Celtic house in Switzerland, and the only Celtic round house in Europe. It’s like a universal house. If you look around the world it’s similar to the type of houses built by peoples living close to nature who build with the materials found around them.”

The walls are a mixture of earth, clay and sand, held in place by thin hazel and willow branches woven together. “The wall construction is like a big basket,” Sommer explains. “You can use very weak materials, but when you put them together, they become very strong.”

The thatched roof was made from reeds Sommer cut from the shore of Lake Thun. He says it will last between 60 and 70 years, and provide better insulation than the roof of a modern house.

“All natural materials are round, and that’s one reason I make round buildings. I take nature as it is. I don’t need to use extra energy just to make something square.”

Sommer uses a pulley to open the top part of the roof, which he calls a hat, to let out the smoke, before continuing.

“A lot of school classes come here to learn about medicinal and edible plants. I try to share my knowledge of the earth and how to work with it.”

A teacher by profession, Sommer – now in his early 40s – spent much of his early adulthood on the road, living with and learning from indigenous peoples, particularly in the United States and Central America. It made him curious about the ancient peoples who once inhabited the Alps.

“I don’t want to go back and live like the Celts or stone-age people, but to learn from them. I want to find out how they managed to live in harmony with nature. We’ve forgotten, so we have to start all over again.”

Sommer has planted thousands of native trees on his property and a “medicine” garden for producing his own herbal remedies. He keeps rare livestock species, once common in Switzerland but now threatened with extinction, and makes leather goods, using skills he learned in Costa Rica.

When it comes to the Celtic house, he says his aim is not to build for building’s sake, but to help preserve nature. “We build with hedges and reeds, materials which are in short supply – so we’ll increase biodiversity by replanting these natural materials. We don’t just have to conserve, but to increase biodiversity.”

His house is a lesson in sustainable living, but paradoxically, Sommer is not allowed to live in it. Swiss law forbids occupation of buildings with thatched roofs, because they are considered a fire hazard.

Undaunted, he has played a leading role in building the “Village Lacustre de Gletterens” a reconstruction of a Neolithic village on the eastern shore of Lake Neuchatel, and is working on similar projects to bring his ideas to a wider public.

He also continues to make a small contribution to nature conservation, as he sees it, by giving talks to schoolchildren and managers, who are often found gathered in a circle round the fire of the Celtic house.

by Dale Bechtel