Historical walk

From the trunk of the Napoleonic oak, descend to the stone bench nearby.

A beautiful crown of trees stands on an elongated hillside, an ancient glacial moraine.

Unithèque is a beautiful crown of trees stands on an elongated hillside, an ancient glacial moraine.

A moraine is a kind of crater, the result of the accumulation of materials associated with the presence of a glacier.

At its peak 25,000 years ago, the Rhone glacier reached an altitude of almost 1,400 m in the Lausanne area. The Dorigny moraine was formed around 15,000 years ago and marks a milestone in the slow retreat of the glacier towards the Rhone valley. As the glacier stagnated here for a sufficiently long time, the materials transported by the glacier (stones of all sizes, fine materials, etc.) were able to settle on the edge of the glacier that occupied the site of the present-day Léman, creating this elongated hill.

From this bench, take the covered path that runs alongside the Unithèque building.
Further down, at a fork in the road, turn left just before the Unicentre building.
At another junction, turn left.
The two paths, one paved with flagstones and the other with wood shavings, will take you to the Grange de Dorigny, whose imposing roof you can see.
At this former barn, turn right to follow the red-shuttered façade of the Ferme de Dorigny as closely as possible.
Then turn left, then right, along the path beside the river (the watercourse on your left).

The Chamberonne, etymologically known as the crayfish stream, is a river that flows peacefully along the topography of the area. Upstream, it bumps up against the moraine, which it eventually flows around to reach the edge of the lake in a straighter line.

The presence of water enabled the de Loys family to settle in the Dorigny countryside. In 1706, a paper mill was set up in the loop of the Chamberonne in place of today's Château de Dorigny. It was connected to the river by a canal. A few decades later, this paper mill was joined by a laundry (for hemp cloth) and a swift (a forge). This small industrial activity was soon abandoned in the second half of the 18th century.

On your right is the white-fronted Château de Dorigny.

The de Loys family acquired the Dorigny estate in the 17th century. After setting up a small industrial business (paper mill, forge, laundry, etc.), Etienne-François-Louis was responsible for building Château de Dorigny in the 1770s. As soon as the work was completed, the castle was inhabited by this family. The rural outbuildings were important, as the estate was primarily used for agricultural purposes. Jean-Samuel, Etienne's nephew, conducted a number of agronomic experiments here from the early 19th century, notably on fallow land and crop rotation.

Today's Ferme and Grange de Dorigny were built during the 19th century, following a fire that destroyed the former farm buildings. Marguerite left the premises in 1910. She was the last descendant of the de Loys family to live in the Château. Following this, the house was rented out, notably to the family of Prince Aga Khan. It is said that his son Ali spent his holidays there in the early 1950s with his wife, the famous actress Rita Hayworth. Fact or fiction? The fact remains that their daughter Yasmine was born in December 1949 in... Lausanne.

At the end of the path, go right along a section of the Chateau. At the footpath, turn left. A little further up on your left is a small white house with grey shutters.

It was also used as a wine press for the Bois-de-Vaux wine estate.

After housing the Section d’histoire et esthétique du cinéma for a number of years, the défraichie rose façade house was completely renovated in 2014. In keeping with the tradition of UNIL's historic buildings, the house has been renamed Le Vieux Pressoir, in keeping with its original function. Since 2015, this building has been home to the Equal Opportunities Office.

At the end of the tarmac path, turn right and cross the avenue lined with plane trees.

This avenue is one of the most beautiful in the region, with more than a hundred trees lining the path to the lake. The plane trees that make up the park are free to grow, as they have been able to expand their crowns without being cut back or reduced in height. This gives the site an unmistakeable natural appearance.

Drawings show the presence of an avenue of trees from this location to the lake in the early 19th century. However, there is no evidence to suggest that this avenue was originally planted with plane trees, as a hurricane in February 1879 completely destroyed it. It therefore had to be completely reforested, this time entirely with plane trees. The oldest specimens, located on the other side of the main road towards the lake, certainly date from this period. They are over 20 metres high. Others are more recent, such as those near the small car park, which in the 1980s replaced vehicles showing signs of weakness.

Leave this tree-lined driveway and continue straight ahead along the path that climbs steeply and takes you to the Napoléon castle.

Well before the UNIL buildings were constructed in the 1970s, this castle was at the heart of the Dorigny estate. It is thought to have been planted in 1800 to honour the passage of Napoleon Bonaparte and 40,000 men on their way to Italy on 12 May. Dendrochronological research (a method of dating by studying the growth rings of tree trunks) enabled us to date the exact year: 1778. It was therefore planted here at the age of 22.

When it arrived in Dorigny in 1800, this oak had a trunk with a diameter of 15 cm and a height of 130 cm, compared with the current height of 160 cm. The circumference will be 6.75m and the height 35m. And there's more to come, because trees grow until they die. On his way to Italy, Napoleon is said to have sat on the stone bench at the foot of a tree in Yvorne. Yvorne donated the bench to UNIL in 1985.

To stabilise the tree, 120 metres of guy ropes were installed in the early 2000s. This system, which was changed in 2012, is known as static.

Go straight up the pebble-covered path, then continue straight on.
At the end of the undergrowth, at the crossroads, go straight on.

In 1911, Baron de Coubertin and the Olympic Committee launched a competition to design a modern-day Olympia, which could then be built on a permanent site. A few years later, Alphonse Laverrière, a well-known architect who had already completed the renovation of Lausanne railway station and the construction of the new Olympia, was invited to take part in the competition;novation of Lausanne railway station and, later, the Bel-Air tower, designed a project soberly entitled « Olympie» which was to be built on part of the current campus. This project did not see the light of day, nor did a subsequent one a few decades later.

In the 1940s, the idea of creating an intercontinental airport was mooted on the current EPFL site, with the runway planned to extend as far as Unith. The politicians of the time were clearly in favour of this project, which they believed would enable Lausanne to acquire an international dimension that the Bléroport de la Blécherette, which was too small, could not fulfil. In 1946, it was the people of Vaud who had to decide. They rejected the project for fear of the noise pollution that the planes would cause.

Continue straight on until you reach the Amphipôle building.

When the State of Vaud bought the Dorigny estate, it made a bold decision to move the university out of the city, betting that the student population would grow. The gamble paid off, with the number of students rising from 2,000 at the end of the 1960s to 16,919 in 2020.

At the time of the first buildings, in particular the Amphipôle, inaugurated in 1970 in the aftermath of May 68, the municipalities in which the campus is spread out clearly specified their wish that there should be no student accommodation on the site.
55 years later, at the beginning of 2020, the campus will welcome its first residents just on the other side of the bridge that crosses the metro line towards the La Pala plot where the Vortex building was constructed. This houses around 1,000 students and staff from the universities.

Retrace your steps to the faithful Napoleon oak tree.