Sometimes it seems as if Swiss humor emerges most frequently in the architectural details of their buildings and public places. The brackets supporting the bay windows of the old buildings seems a particularly common place for small surprises and funny faces. One bay window in St. Gallen (left) was particular was loaded: funny faces and figures festooned all the brackets, the corner newels, and the panels. Elsewhere in town,dragons smiled from the end of each drain spout of otherwise dignified buildings. In Zurich, burghers, craftsman, pensioners, children and imps decorate the the Stadthaus building pillars. In Basel, a pool of small animated fountains bubble and purr with no reason but to cause a smile.
Walking home from the train station one afternoon last October, I just happened to glance at the shutter brackets on an old local building in Kilchberg. Crafted of black iron, and shaped like a hinged "L", the brackets sit at the bottom center of each shutter, holding them tight against the building when open. To my delight, each bracket was crafted so that a human face always pointed outward: a smiling face
for an open shutter and a frowning one 
on the obverse for a closed shutter. While no bigger than 2 cm. across, each face, after decades of exposure, was still clear and detailed.It seems, at least in the case of old swiss buildings, that joy lives in the details.
Continuing on my walk home and arriving at my 50s vintage flat, it seemed a pity that nearly all post WWII Swiss architecture is of the Bauhaus tradition: cold and angular and stark. While graceful, it seems lifeless and inhumane in comparison. Fortunately, a few squares of dark Swiss chocolate and dinner with a friend in an old inn can make up for an awful lot of bad architecture.
