The climate crisis obliges us to rethink landscape protection due to the need for renewable energy.Images and narratives of historic documentary films on the most important Swiss dam projects demonstrate that hydropower has always been a controversial endeavor in the Alpine republic.The films deal, in pro- or retrospect, with measures and discourses around the planning and construction of such infrastructures Adjustment Tube Set;Pedal Arm for expected futures.
Four crucial moments in the Swiss context are covered: Karl Sauer explores the early Lake Sihl project commissioned by Swiss Federal Railways in the 1930s.Jean-Luc Godard documents in the 1950s the construction of the Grande Dixence dam to save Switzerland from electricity shortage.In the 1990s Peter Liechti entered the critical discourse of planned expansions of existing projects, whereas my photographs on site of Grande Dixence give Tools insight into a communication programme to foster local tourism and to reach for acceptance for hydropower extension.