Geneva from the Rooftops

Unfolding the Billon map, drawn between 1726 and 1728, we discover Geneva from above, long before the invention of aerial photography. Every plot, every house and every garden is meticulously depicted, offering a precious window onto the city as it once was: a city enclosed within its double ring of fortifications, whose rooftops formed a landscape in their own right. Observing these roofs clustered tightly together, we discover a city that, lacking space to expand, learned to build upwards. They also tell the story of the slow transition from a medieval city largely built of wood and vulnerable to fire, to a city of stone.

The Maison Tavel, a survivor of the great fire of 1334, still preserves its memory today. It houses the famous Magnin Relief, a remarkable model of Geneva around 1850, which allows us to read the city just before the demolition of its fortifications, championed by James Fazy, an emblematic figure of modern Geneva. His name would even be given to an entire chapter of the city’s urban development: the “Fazyste belt”. The transformation was radical. The city opened outwards, breathed and reinvented itself.

Over the course of half a century, the fortified city gradually gave way to modern Geneva, an open and rapidly expanding city.

The affluent classes settled in the new districts and built magnificent residences, including the celebrated private mansions set between courtyards and gardens. Working-class neighbourhoods were pushed towards the outskirts. Buildings were renewed, marked by foreign influences. Architectural forms evolved, while shapes and colours redrew the cityscape. Dark-hued slate mingled with, and gradually replaced, the clay roof tiles in shades ranging from brown to orange. Public buildings appeared throughout the city, breaking the discipline of a two-colour palette.

During the twentieth century, roofs gradually became flatter and terraces multiplied. Rooftops were planted, redesigned and reclaimed by residents.

More recently, the city has once again begun to rise, with successive rooftop extensions sometimes provoking controversy. Illuminated signs belonging to major brands, Swiss watchmakers and banking institutions light up the city from nightfall, while curious words frame the Plaine de Plainpalais. Art is watching you.

Seen from its streets, Geneva reveals its monuments. Seen from its rooftops, it unveils its intimate structure. The centuries can be read there like layers: every slope, every terrace and every upward extension bears witness to the constraints, ambitions and transformations that have shaped the city.

Set against its lake, which the people of Geneva affectionately call “Lake Geneva”, the city concentrates history. History does not spread out here; it accumulates in layers.

Each roof belongs to an era. Observing them becomes a different way of reading the city, understanding its evolution and grasping what has endured as much as what has changed.

                                                                                                                            In memory of Michel Autard