Portrait of Max Haefeli, 1939 © AGTA

Max Haefeli grew up on the Giseli country estate near Lucerne, where his father owned the Hotel Schwanen. After attending primary and secondary school in Lucerne, he enrolled at the Bauschule of the Eidgenössisches Polytechnikum in Zurich (later the architectural department of the Federal Institute of Technology). His most important teacher was Alfred Friedrich Bluntschli, himself a pupil and successor of Gottfried Semper. >>

Biography born in Lucerne.   1869   architectural studies at the Bauschule des Eidgenössischen Polytechnikums (now the Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich). Collaborated in the office of A.F. Bluntschli, and subsequently in Wiesbaden with A. Schellenberg and in Berlin with Erdmann & Spindler.   1889-93   successful partnership with Otto Pfleghard. Before the break-up of the partnership in 1927, they realised numerous buildings (residential buildings. offices, shops. hospitals and sanatoriums).   1897   extended study trips in the USA.   1920   own office, in which his son, Max Ernst Haefeli, also worked at the beginning.   1927   died in Barbegna.   1941