Birr is a municipality in the Swiss canton of Aargau and the capital of Brugg (district). The village lies halfway between Lenzburg and Brugg. Birr has grown with its neighbour Lupfig into a conurbation. Birr is known as one of the places where the Swiss educator Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi established new standards in education. His gravesite in Birr is listed as a heritage site of national significance. History While a few artifacts from the Roman and Alamanni eras have been found in Birr, there was no known settlement. Birr is first mentioned in 1270 as Bire. Throughout the High Middle Ages the village belonged to the Habsburgs. The rights to rule the village went to Königsfelden Abbey at Windisch in 1397 and 1411. After the secularization of the monastery in 1528 those rights transferred to Bern. The chapel, which was a subsidiary of Windisch, became a parish church during the Reformation. This parish includes Lupfig, Birrhard, Scherz, Schinznach-Bad and Brunegg. The current reformed church was built in 1662 by Abraham Dünz. In 1771, Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi bought a piece of waste land called Neuhof (New Farm), where he attempted the cultivation of madder. Pestalozzi knew nothing of business, and the plan failed. Before this he had opened his farm-house as a school, but that plan also met with failure. His later attempts at founding schools and education theory were more successful. However, following an 1815 rebellion among the teachers of his school, his last ten years were marred by weariness and sorrow. In 1825 he retired to Neuhof, the place of his youth, and after writing the adventures of his life, and his last work, the Swans Song, he died at Brugg. Since 1914, Neuhof has served as a reform school. After 1950 Birr changed from an agricultural to an industrial village. The arrival of BBC (a factory for the manufacture of rotating electrical machinery) in 1957-65 along with a 500 apartment housing development, resulted in a strong growth spurt. By 1990 the working population included commuters (73%), industrial workers (46%) and foreigners (44%). Only about 1% of the population worked in agriculture. Geography Birr has an area, , of . Of this area, or 35.0% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 34.9% is forested. Of the rest of the land, or 29.9% is settled (buildings or roads). Of the built up area, industrial buildings made up 7.9% of