The Schafer house was designed by Rudolf Olgiati in 1974.

Is it situated close to his hometown in the Grisons canton in Switzerland. As most of the houses he did in this area, the main features are the simple and white surfaces, the local echoes of traditional architecture and the influence of the modernism.

The house has two opposed facades physically and conceptually, where one of them is a thick opaque wall with a series of 'free' small openings. The other facade is more permeable, with relevant glazed windows facing the views. An non-circular arch is used to create an opening in the lateral of the building.

Olgiati mainly built family houses in the mountainous region of Grisons, Switzerland, and restored old farmhouses and patrician houses, later also designed buildings in southern France and Germany together with Alfred Werner Maurer.

Olgiati's cubical use of forms moved between the priorities of Grison's local architectural tradition, the ancient Greek style, and modernism mainly oriented on Le Corbusier. Thus, Olgiati was striving for a universal, timeless, and radically modern architecture, equally documenting the influence of international architecture as well as the indigenous Swiss architecture; thereby always remaining aware of its ideological and formal context. With Olgiati, who never considered the use of traditional elements as restorative, architecture is combined with local traditions and with the place as such, which he claimed to remodel by creating an intimate relationship between the architecture and the local residents.