Blaues Haus

Rheinsprung 16, 4051 Basel, Basel-Stadt

By Nina Norambuena

Basel and its ties with the Silk industry

Figure 1 Blaues Haus, view from Rheinside. Photo N. Norambuena, 15.12.2021

Figure 2 Photo N. Norambuena, 15.12.2021

The Reichsteinerhof, which is commonly called Blaues Haus (Blue House), is located in the old town of Grossbasel on the shore of the Rhine. It is an impressive building, palace-like and nicely renovated, contributing to the townscape of Basel. It was built between 1763-1770 for the Sarasin brothers, who were both successful silk ribbon manufacturers and used the Blaues Haus as a base for their business affairs. Today, part of the City administration is located in it.

Figure 3 Departement für Wirtschaft, Soziales und Umwelt des Kantons Basel-Stadt. Photo N. Norambuena, 15.12.2021

In the 18^th century, when the Blaues Haus was built, the silk ribbon industry in Basel flourished and was an important source of wealth for the patrician Sarasin-Family just as for the city as a whole (Roth, 2022). Originally, the Sarasin-family, like many other successful merchant-families in Basel, were Huguenots, who had fled religious persecution in 16^th century France and carried on their business in neighboring Switzerland (Wichers, 2015). From the 16^th century onwards, silk ribbons became a popular fashion statement for the European elite and were used to decorate their opulent clothing (Lemire et al., 2008). For the silk ribbon production in Switzerland, the manufacturers required silk - a material, which originally comes from Asia. The silk, gained from silkworms, was brought over the silk roads on land or on sea from Japan, China or India to Europe. Silkworms need a warm climate. In the 19^th century, silk production was introduced in the canton of Ticino due to its favorable climatic conditions (Mottu-Weber, 2020). Nevertheless, most of the silk used in the Swiss silk ribbon industry was imported from Japan, a trade dominated by a Swiss trading company called Siber Hegner.

Figure 4 Photo N. Norambuena, 15.12.2021

In the 1840s luxurious silk and cotton products represented around 80 % of Swiss exports (Laurence and Veyrassat, 1995) and at the end of the century, over 12’000 people were employed in the production of silk ribbons in Basel-Stadt and Basel-Landschaft. It is no question that the added value to the material brought wealth to the Swiss manufacturers and merchants, a prosperity well represented by the luxurious look of the Blue House. Nevertheless, we should not forget that in the 19^th century, at the height of the Swiss silk ribbon industry, European colonial expansion was also at its peak. The history of the successful silk ribbon industry cannot be excluded from this context. Even though Switzerland did not possess colonies on its own, Swiss merchants profited from their privileged relationship with the colonial powers which influenced their trade in Asia and Europe as well (Zangger, 2020). It was a relationship that paid off in the context of the Basel silk ribbon industry until the demand for silk ribbons dropped with the economic crisis in the 1930s and the Second World War.

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