The Engadine house is given, to a certain extent, an iconic significance among alpine domiciles. The type of house, developed during the 15th and 16th centuries and built in the Engadine and in other neighbouring valleys into the late 18th century, lends an almost urban touch to the villages where they stand.At the beginning of the 20th century most of the buildings in Graubünden could be categorised as 'farming architecture'. In a certain sense, the Engadine house was almost synonymous for a Grisonian farmhouse although they were not found in every part of the canton. Graubünden is, on the contrary, marked by a very varied style of house building. The Engadine house is found in the Bergell valley, the Albula and Munster valleys and of course in the Engadine valley where they represented - between the 16th and the late 18th centuries - the only accepted building-type. Most Engadine houses are stonework multi-purpose buildings.