Those magnificent men and their spying machines

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Flow studies using dye in the River Rhine near Bibermühle in Hemishofen, canton Schaffhausen, 1976 ETH-Bibliothek Zrich, Bildarchiv/Stiftung Luftbild Schweiz

Nature reserve surrounded by farmland: Lake Inkwil between Inkwil and Bolken, canton Bern, 1976 ETH-Bibliothek Zrich, Bildarchiv/Stiftung Luftbild Schweiz

Ice floes on Lake Obersee near Bollingen, canton St Gallen, February 1981 ETH-Bibliothek Zrich, Bildarchiv/Stiftung Luftbild Schweiz

Andermatt, canton Uri, March 1968; protected since 1397, the triangle of forest above the town provides a natural defence against avalanches and rockslides ETH-Bibliothek Zrich, Bildarchiv/Stiftung Luftbild Schweiz

North face of the Matterhorn, October 1973 ETH-Bibliothek Zrich, Bildarchiv/Stiftung Luftbild Schweiz

The Rhône Glacier and Furka Pass, 1973 ETH-Bibliothek Zrich, Bildarchiv/Stiftung Luftbild Schweiz

Lower Aare Glacier with Brünberg and Bächlistock in front of it, the Finsteraarhorn behind it, Lauteraarhorn and Schreckhorn at right, 1925 ETH

St Moritz, canton Graubünden, in winter 1919 with the Hotel Palace and Grand Hotel on the right with their ice rinks; above them Hotel Kulm ETH

The dust-covered streets of Basel's Lothringerplatz, 1918. Vegetable plots sandwiched between tenements and workshops in the working-class district of St Johann with the gas works and Sandoz chemical factory on the Rhine eth

La Chaux-de-Fonds in 1925; after a devastating fire in 1794, this major watchmaking centre was rebuilt on a grid pattern and enlarged at the same time ETH

Sihlfeld cemetery, Zurich 1923; with the crematorium built in 1915 ETH-Bibliothek Zrich, Bildarchiv/Stiftung Luftbild Schweiz

Bremgarten on the River Reuss, canton Aargau, 1919 ETH

Small fields. streams and rows of trees planted as windbreaks on the Melser Au near Sargans, canton St Gallen, autumn 1947 ETH

Pont de Pérolles, 1926; the concrete road bridge leads from Fribourg over the River Saane to Marly ETH

The Grande Dixence Dam in the Val d'Hérémence, 1964; built between 1951 and 1965, the dam holds up the Lac des Dix and at 285 metres high was the tallest dam in the world at the time of construction ETH-Bibliothek Zrich, Bildarchiv/Stiftung Luftbild Schweiz

Estuary of the Broye Canal in Lake Neuchâtel, May 1991 with Witzwil penitentiary visible on the left ETH-Bibliothek Zrich, Bildarchiv/Stiftung Luftbild Schweiz

General Motors logistics centre in Studen near Biel, 1973 ETH-Bibliothek Zrich, Bildarchiv/Stiftung Luftbild Schweiz

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The Swissair Aerial Photography Archive contains stunning images of Switzerland's natural and man-made beauty taken between 1918 and 2011.

Nowadays, we probably take aerial views for granted – anyone who’s been in an aeroplane or has access to online maps knows what their city, town or even house looks like from high above. 

So did those pre-technology Swiss who lived up mountains, looking down on their valley-dwelling neighbours. But for those on the central plains, the first aerial photographs must have been something of a revelation.   

Swiss aviation pioneer Walter Mittelholzer recognised the fascination of aerial photography and was one of the first to exploit its commercial potential. Having gained aerial photography experience during the First World War – snapping enemy positions and troop movements – after the war he founded an airline which merged to become Swissair in 1931. 

In 1934, he founded Swissair Photo AG specifically for marketing aerial images. Mittelholzer died in a climbing accident three years later, aged 43, but the company thrived on demand for bird’s-eye views, which ended up on walls, in brochures, as postcards or as a source of general information. 

Swissair was grounded in October 2001 – a result of a failed over-expansion strategy and the economic downturn after the 9/11 attacks – but the 135,000 images in the Swissair aerial photography archive were moved to the imaging archive of the libraryExternal link of the federal technology institute ETH Zurich. 

In 2014, “Swissair Aerial PhotographsExternal link” was published in German and English, showing in remarkable detail (and from around 1960 also in colour) how Switzerland’s fields and farms and scattered factories have largely disappeared under the suburban sprawl of housing developments and motorways. 

(Photos: ETH-Bibliothek Zürich, Bildarchiv/Stiftung Luftbild Schweiz, Text: Thomas Stephens/swissinfo.ch)