Page 242 - Livre Beau Rivage Palace

Fig. 1 Fig. 2

ITALY, SWITZERLAND, of shabbily dressed labourers aged between nineteen and twenty- was registered at the local companies registration office, the
four, playing cards and humming along to love songs, accompanied
Registre du Commerce du District de Vevey, with headquarters
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AND DREAM BUILDING PROJECTS by a mandolin. In reality, their presence was a nuisance. Although in Territet. The workshops and company office were located in
at work they were indispensable, elsewhere people liked them the basement of the Villa Beauregard, home of the hotelier and
to remain as invisible as possible. Most of them stayed in small property developer Ami Chessex-Emery.
villages on the outskirts of the tourist resorts; and on the building Negri and Uberti’s company was involved in numerous
sites, contractors were even ordered to organise the work so that prestigious hotel-building projects, including the Montreux Palace
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the foreign labourers were kept away from tourists. The terms (1905-06) and the Beau-Rivage Palace (1905-08), of which they
and conditions set out by the Beau-Rivage Palace stipulated that were especially proud, using an image of the rotunda on their
‘Crossing the courtyard to the north and the gardens to the south promotional business cards (fig. 1). In 1911, Eugène Jost, the
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of the hotel is absolutely forbidden, both for the transport of architect responsible for many of these ‘luxury’ building projects,
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building materials and for the workers,’ and this is borne out by built a large investment property in Clarens (Avenue Rousseau
Éléonore RINALDI
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the measures taken to enclose the site. 20-22) for the two entrepreneurs: their business was doing very
‘Dear Shareholders, Last year marked the completion of the work find work, at whatever cost. There was more than enough work While they were fundamental to the construction work and, well at the time, and they could not have foreseen the disastrous
that we began planning in 1903; it was started in 1905, suspended for all of them, but certain ‘revolutionaries’ threatened the building in a certain sense, to the tourist boom, these strapping ‘hired hands’ consequences of the First World War. For a certain period, the
for the whole of summer 1906 because of the builders’ strike, went full workers, forcing them to go on strike and to demand better rights, remained largely in the shadows. Some of the immigrants found building was used as the company’s new premises and it probably
steam ahead in 1907, and was finally completed during summer 1908. better pay, insurance and reduced working hours. 4 work back in Italy and never returned to Switzerland, but others also housed the community of Italian labourers. The company was
The new Palace hotel building opened to the general public on 19 June, Switzerland needed the Italian workers – they were cheap, settled and brought their wives and children. Through sheer dissolved on 29 December 1921, following the death of Negri.
although this should have taken place at the start of the year had the major plentiful, efficient and experienced. They moved from building site determination and, often, sacrifice, a few of them were able to Like many other Italian entrepreneurs, Negri and Uberti
events of 1906 not prevented it from doing so.’ to building site and from town to town in response to the ‘building fulfil their dreams and achieve success. Having arrived penniless in were at the centre of a whole network of professional contacts and
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As building sites sprang up in quick succession, luxury hotels mania’ the country was experiencing. Busy as worker ants, they the 1860s, some builders went on to become respected contractors, relationships. We now know that managers, foremen, workers and
and tourist resorts spread across the Swiss Riviera and success built the hotels, roads, quays and the entire tourist infrastructure. who in turn employed other Italian workers. Among these were labourers moved from one site to another in Montreux, Lausanne
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beckoned, anxious building contractors and hoteliers must have Having initially arrived from the north of the peninsula, these François Damien Negri and Louis Jacques Uberti. 10 and elsewhere, on the basis of recommendations. Groups of
spent many a sleepless night panicking that their building schemes immigrants came to Switzerland with nothing but their expertise Negri was a talented sculptor who worked on the Casino migrants from the same home towns would live together and
might not be finished in time for the opening of the tourist season. and their bare hands. They followed a specific migratory path. As of Evian (designed by the architect Jules Clerc), for which work on the same sites for the same contractors, thus forming
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Every year since 1890, the same refrain could be heard the case study of Montreux has confirmed, they took the advice he produced a number of mischievous cherubs and carnival or ‘Little Italy’ enclaves in villages such as Chailly, La Rouvenaz and
across the building sites of small and large hotels alike, such as and followed in the footsteps of earlier ‘explorers’, the first Italian theatrical grotesques in his Montreux workshop. From 1898 Clarens, where the population of labourers also included those
the Caux Palace, the Montreux Palace and the Beau-Rivage: ‘the immigrants to Switzerland who had often arrived alone, blazing to 1902, Negri worked in partnership with Morhardt and working in local industries.
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workers are going on strike’. Sites ground to a standstill, towns a trail for other men from their families, villages or regions. The collaborated on the Hôtel National’s galleries building scheme, One symbol of the relationship between Italy and Switzerland
and cities were put under military surveillance and women and immigrants’ motto was: work, build and send money home at the commissioned by the Société de l’Hôtel National de Montreux, was the Simplon, which connected the two countries. At first
children hurled stones at the soldiers who had come to subdue end of the season. Originally from small mountain villages, which whose principal shareholder was the hotelier and businessman negotiable only by foot or mule, in 1906 the tunnel and railroad
the protesting workers. often did not even have electricity or running water, they were Alexandre Emery. From 1900 to 1902 the sculptor worked on the were opened linking Paris to Milan via Lausanne, Montreux
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Although standards of luxury were high enough to satisfy parachuted into towns and cities to work on luxury buildings the Caux Palace alongside Morhardt and Uberti & Cie, and following and Stresa. One of the Beau-Rivage’s board reports commented:
and attract tourists from around the world, there was the flipside like of which they had never before seen. The enduring picture we this, on the Montreux train station (1901-02). On 1 January 1905, ‘Another reason in favour of enlarging the Beau-Rivage is the increase in
of the coin: a workforce of builders, labourers, stucco workers, have of these seasonal workers, a picture which the Feuille d’Avis Negri and Uberti became partners and, on 20 September 1906, movement expected in Lausanne after the opening of the Simplon Tunnel.
plasterers and sculptors who had all come from Italy to try and de Montreux (a local newspaper) particularly helped to paint, was they founded a company called ‘Sculpture et décoration’ which Rightly or wrongly, we are already anticipating that a higher number of

Headed notepaper of the construction company Negri et Uberti, 1919. De Jongh, Beach at Lausanne-Ouchy. Photograph, c.1930.

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