When you’re walking through a city in Switzerland, your eyes drift upward without you noticing. Not to the shop windows—toward the space under a second- or third-floor window. Because up there, you might see a small “right of passage” someone has built for their cat: two pieces of wood, a few steps, sometimes a thin ramp leaning against a rain gutter, sometimes a more “architectural” frame that climbs up several floors in a zigzag. Some are extremely simple; some look as if they weren’t added later but were designed into the facade from the start.
It’s as if building facades add subtitles by themselves: “A cat lives in this home.”
This fascination also has a documented side: Brigitte Schuster’s book Architecture – Swiss Cat Ladders (with the German subtitle Architektur für die Katz – Schweizer Katzenleitern). The book treats these structures not as a cute curiosity, but as real façade add-ons—small pieces of everyday architecture that reveal how a city makes room for another resident. Even the cover says it all: a clean line drawing of an apartment building with a zigzagging cat route stitched onto the outside, floor by floor.
And that’s exactly where the first effect of Swiss cat ladders begins: something that looks like a practical fix turns into a cultural signal within seconds. The ladder stops being just a “cat thing” and starts making one of city life’s invisible rules visible.
Because the ladder isn’t just a ladder; it’s the wood-and-screw version of this sentence: “I don’t arrange my home only for myself, but also for the living creature I share it with.” And they don’t hide it; they don’t solve it indoors; they bring it outside. A facade is usually kept sterile for aesthetic reasons: even an AC unit can start a fight, even the color of shutters can become an apartment meeting topic. But here, the route built for a cat has somehow been accepted as “okay, that makes sense,” and over time it has blended into the city’s texture.
There are two sides to this. First, Switzerland’s general sense of “order.” Second, the small space of anarchy a cat opens inside that order. If you live in an apartment, going outside isn’t a decision; it’s a protocol: door, key, elevator, stairs, another door… For a cat, that protocol is bureaucracy invented by humans.
And cats don’t like bureaucracy. They like shortcuts.
That’s exactly why Swiss cat ladders work like a “shortcut infrastructure”: a corridor that removes the human from between the cat’s safe indoor zone and its curiosity-driven outdoor zone. It cancels the question, “Should I open this now, should I close it?” How do you know a design is great? It removes the part that annoys the user. Here, there are two users: you and the cat.
You both win; you retire from being the door attendant, and the cat learns not to plan its day around your schedule.
These little ladders can be so creative that you find yourself thinking, “Did the cat ask for this, or did the owner just want a project?” Because the variety is genuinely wild: there’s a simple wooden incline, a quiet solution that looks like something a carpenter made during a lunch break. There are tiny steps lined along a rain gutter—suddenly the gutter turns into a cat’s walking track. And there are systems that span multiple floors, turn corners, include small platforms—almost like they add a new layer to the building’s architecture.
What I like here is that there’s no single “correct” solution. Cats don’t use a standardized product; they use opportunities already present in life. Humans build accordingly. That’s why Swiss cat ladders don’t feel like an IKEA product; they feel more like a small street intervention: it leaves a mark but doesn’t shout. Most of the time it sits there until you notice it; and the moment you do, the city itself changes. You’re no longer looking at a building—you’re looking at a “life scenario.”
That window is where the cat comes back in. That step is the route it takes for morning sun. That ramp is the determination of “I’m going out anyway” on a rainy day. The facade becomes the cat’s map. And suddenly you remember that architecture isn’t designed “only for humans”; maybe the best part of architecture is that it becomes richer over time, layer by layer, with different needs.
Why do Swiss cat ladders feel so “Swiss”?
Because this isn’t only about cats; it’s the design language of living together. When people hear “Switzerland,” the same cliché comes up: watches, order, punctuality. Sure, it’s there. But the real point is this: even small needs are taken seriously inside that order. Nobody says, “It’s just a cat, what’s the big deal.” They say, “Okay, there should be a solution for this.” You can see this mindset in train schedules, in the slope of a sidewalk stone, even sometimes in the placement of a street sign.
Swiss cat ladders are a tiny extension of the same mentality: see the problem, don’t dismiss it, and integrate the solution in a way that doesn’t disrupt life. That’s why the ladders often don’t look like random piles of wood. Color choice, angle calculations, grip points… the cat’s body is considered as much as the building’s aesthetics. And there’s an emotional side too: you don’t see the cat as a “pet ornament”; you see it as a resident of the home. A living being with its own rhythm, its own decisions, its own “I have something to do outside” attitude.
There’s also a clear practical payoff. If you live upstairs, opening and closing the door for the fifth time in a day eventually produces “small irritation.” For the cat, freedom also means order for you: when the cat’s comings and goings aren’t tied to your schedule, the tension inside the home goes down. Comfort sometimes doesn’t come from buying a new couch, but from canceling a pointless routine.
Now let’s touch the technical side, because there’s engineering here as much as romance. Yes, cats are acrobats—but not every jump ends smoothly. Age, weight, past injuries, even simple “lack of attention in that moment” can create risk. A ladder or ramp offers a controlled route that reduces that risk. And it’s not just physical; it can affect behavior too. A cat with outdoor access may get bored less; instead of dumping stored energy onto household objects, it stays occupied outside with smells, sounds, and routine.
And there’s the question everyone thinks of: “How do cats know which ladder belongs to which home?” Human logic immediately wants labels: write a name, add a number, stick on a QR code… Cat logic is shorter: scent, visual memory, repetition. Once a cat tries it and it works, that route becomes “the correct route.” And cats can be more systematic in a city than you’d expect; they pass the same spot at the same time, jump the same fence, rub the same corner. The ladder adds a fixed point to that routine.
Of course, it’s not all rosy. A city cat going outside brings risks: traffic, other animals, interaction with the environment. So saying “you build a ladder and the issue is done” would be simplistic. But to me, the most interesting thing here is the discussion itself: this topic is talked about, thought about, visualized, and even archived to the point of becoming a book. So the issue isn’t “the cat went out”; it’s “how do we manage this coexistence.”
I like reading these ladders as “micro-architecture in the city.” We talk about big architecture—squares, bridges, museums—but what truly changes life is often micro interventions: where a bench is placed, the texture of a sidewalk, the light at an entrance. Swiss cat ladders are like that. They make a living being’s movement easier. And they don’t shove it in the city’s face; but to anyone who notices, they say, “Look, there’s life here.”
If one day you’re walking in Switzerland and you see a cat ladder, don’t just say “how cute” and move on. Stop for a minute. Look at where it leads. Notice the spacing of the steps, why the turns happen at that corner, why that material was chosen. Then ask yourself this: “In the place where I live, what do I make visible for the living beings I share it with?”
A home isn’t only an interior; a home is a way of relating. Adding a step for a cat is, in a way, rethinking how you define comfort. Sometimes what improves life isn’t revolutionary ideas, but a small, sturdy, quiet ramp attached to a facade.
