Photos: Joël Tettamanti
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02.02.2008 – 11.05.2008
A R C H / S C A P E S
Negotiating Architecture and Landscape
Arch/Scapes focuses upon 15 new architecture within the heterogeneous cultural landscape of Switzerland, the urban and peri-urban areas, the village typologies of the alpine landscapes and the burgeoning agglomeration. Switzerland’s landscapes – in particular the rural and alpine typologies – are considered public terrain, and a precious asset. New architecture that is to be developed within this landscape is the result of complex democratic processes in which not only the communities or states, but also numerous public bodies protecting the Swiss traditions, have a decisive voice. Concerted moves to preserve traditional building types – from the chalet to the cow pen and the ski hut – mean that with few exceptions, architecture that intends a radical relationship with a given context will not survive a public referendum. However, the Swiss cultural landscape is becoming increasingly urbanised and it is within this contemporary reality that new architecture is shown to negotiate a balance between context and form.
How can the architect modernise, adapt, and advance the design of Swiss architecture beyond the legal restrictions defined by society at large? The wide range of featured buildings have been chosen for the skill with which innovative forms have been devised, and new positions negotiated. The subtle manner in which legal obstacles have been reinterpreted in favour of unfamiliar forms and new materials is a defining process, one that maintains the balance between the needs and desires of the client and public opinion. In particular we reveal the processes by which buildings set a new accent within a context, in dialogue with the landscape, thus establishing an unusual sense of scale or reinterpreting traditional typologies.
Interviews with the featured architects and several clients produced in cooperation with architecture journalists from Switzerland, describe the specific culture of production and design that is highly attuned to the contemporary realities of the changing landscape of Switzerland. The statements make tangible a fundamental subtext of architectural production within this setting: the negotiation between preservation and innovation, between playing to traditional sensibilities and affecting a necessary rupture in conventional typologies that is often the result of ingenious adaptations of planning regulations.
These individual design statements are as diverse as the territories and topographies of Switzerland. New forms have been generated by traditional and sustainable means to harmonise with a surrounding context. Industrial architecture can be designed to blend in almost invisibly with the landscape. The classic mountain chalet can be parodied by creating an urbane, even ironic, underworld. A ski lodge redesign effects a transformation of traditional form to state of the art self- sufficiency using the most lightweight and modular constructions. Highly traditional building methods are adapted to fit contemporary needs whilst still maintaining cultural specificity. The landscape can become such an integral part of architecture that interior and exterior worlds blend and interrelate through the interplay of transparency and abstraction. Often the response to a restricting context is to draw nature into an interior world in a form of architectural introspection.
The featured projects are offset throughout both the exhibition and this publication by the photographs of Joël Tettamanti. Tettamanti contrasts the extreme alpine landscapes with the scattered urbanisation that defies clichéd perceptions of Switzerland as a rural and lakeside idyll. This framing of the featured architecture with these images of fragmented topographies is meant to underline a contemporary Swiss reality. Within this reality the careful negotiation between private and public primarily to maintain norms and traditions is increasingly compromised. The gradual erosion of the Swiss landscape by urbanization means that new architecture will in future need to devise entirely new typologies that take account of wholly uncharacteristic forms of public terrain.
The exhibition architecture and graphic design by the Basel-based HHF architects, zmik designers and Revolver Agency, designed for both the Biennale Pavilion in São Paulo (1951) by Oskar Niemeyer and the Architecture Museum in Basel, is a dynamic abstraction of a thematic journey through the Swiss cultural Landscape, from urban areas to the central lowlands and peripheries, and finally to the alpine regions.
02.02.2008 – 11.05.2008
A R C H / S C A P E S
Negotiating Architecture and Landscape
Arch/Scapes focuses upon 15 new architecture within the heterogeneous cultural landscape of Switzerland, the urban and peri-urban areas, the village typologies of the alpine landscapes and the burgeoning agglomeration. Switzerland’s landscapes – in particular the rural and alpine typologies – are considered public terrain, and a precious asset. New architecture that is to be developed within this landscape is the result of complex democratic processes in which not only the communities or states, but also numerous public bodies protecting the Swiss traditions, have a decisive voice. Concerted moves to preserve traditional building types – from the chalet to the cow pen and the ski hut – mean that with few exceptions, architecture that intends a radical relationship with a given context will not survive a public referendum. However, the Swiss cultural landscape is becoming increasingly urbanised and it is within this contemporary reality that new architecture is shown to negotiate a balance between context and form.
How can the architect modernise, adapt, and advance the design of Swiss architecture beyond the legal restrictions defined by society at large? The wide range of featured buildings have been chosen for the skill with which innovative forms have been devised, and new positions negotiated. The subtle manner in which legal obstacles have been reinterpreted in favour of unfamiliar forms and new materials is a defining process, one that maintains the balance between the needs and desires of the client and public opinion. In particular we reveal the processes by which buildings set a new accent within a context, in dialogue with the landscape, thus establishing an unusual sense of scale or reinterpreting traditional typologies.
Interviews with the featured architects and several clients produced in cooperation with architecture journalists from Switzerland, describe the specific culture of production and design that is highly attuned to the contemporary realities of the changing landscape of Switzerland. The statements make tangible a fundamental subtext of architectural production within this setting: the negotiation between preservation and innovation, between playing to traditional sensibilities and affecting a necessary rupture in conventional typologies that is often the result of ingenious adaptations of planning regulations.
These individual design statements are as diverse as the territories and topographies of Switzerland. New forms have been generated by traditional and sustainable means to harmonise with a surrounding context. Industrial architecture can be designed to blend in almost invisibly with the landscape. The classic mountain chalet can be parodied by creating an urbane, even ironic, underworld. A ski lodge redesign effects a transformation of traditional form to state of the art self- sufficiency using the most lightweight and modular constructions. Highly traditional building methods are adapted to fit contemporary needs whilst still maintaining cultural specificity. The landscape can become such an integral part of architecture that interior and exterior worlds blend and interrelate through the interplay of transparency and abstraction. Often the response to a restricting context is to draw nature into an interior world in a form of architectural introspection.
The featured projects are offset throughout both the exhibition and this publication by the photographs of Joël Tettamanti. Tettamanti contrasts the extreme alpine landscapes with the scattered urbanisation that defies clichéd perceptions of Switzerland as a rural and lakeside idyll. This framing of the featured architecture with these images of fragmented topographies is meant to underline a contemporary Swiss reality. Within this reality the careful negotiation between private and public primarily to maintain norms and traditions is increasingly compromised. The gradual erosion of the Swiss landscape by urbanization means that new architecture will in future need to devise entirely new typologies that take account of wholly uncharacteristic forms of public terrain.
The exhibition architecture and graphic design by the Basel-based HHF architects, zmik designers and Revolver Agency, designed for both the Biennale Pavilion in São Paulo (1951) by Oskar Niemeyer and the Architecture Museum in Basel, is a dynamic abstraction of a thematic journey through the Swiss cultural Landscape, from urban areas to the central lowlands and peripheries, and finally to the alpine regions.
Sponsors & Partners >>
Press section >>
Order the publication >>
Feature ART TV >>
Installation views
Bienal Internacional de Arquitetura de São Paulo >>
Swiss Architecture Museum Basel >>
ARCH/SCAPES was the Swiss contribution to the 7th International Architecture Biennial São Paulo 2007 ‘Architecture – The Public and the Private’ commissioned by the Swiss Federal Office of Culture, curated by Francesca Ferguson and realised by S AM Swiss Architecture Museum.
A R C H / S C A P E S features
Materials define the Mood
EM2N Architekten | Mathias Müller | Daniel Niggli, Zürich
Against the Housing Grid
UNDEND Architektur AG, Zürich
New Scale for the Urban Periphery
pool Architekten, Zürich
Invasion of Nature
Officina del Paesaggio, Sophie Agata Ambroise, Lugano
Architecture of Transitions
Niklaus Graber & Christoph Steiger Architekten, Luzern
Against Nature
Luigi Snozzi, Locarno
Terraces as Topography
Giraudi Wettstein Architekten ETH / BSA / SIA, Lugano
Framing Nature
Architekturbüro Peter Zumthor, Haldenstein
Value through Specificity
Gion A. Caminada Architekt BSA / SIA, Vrin
Modern Form, Traditional Construction
LOCAL ARCHITECTURE, Lausanne
Classical Exterior, Conceded Interior World
Bonnard / Woeffray Architectes FAS SIA, Monthey
Monumental Simulation
Valerio Olgiati, Chur
Filigree within an Untamed Landscape
Conzett, Bronzini, Gartmann AG, Chur
The Vista Takes Off
Corinna Menn Architektin ETH/SIA, Chur
The “Shining”
Studio Monte Rosa,
Professor Andrea Deplazes, Marcel Baumgartner
Departement Architektur, ETH Zürich
Client & Project Patron:
Bundesamt für Kultur
der schweizerischen Eidgenossenschafft
Main Sponsors:
Holcim Foundation
Ernst Göhner Stiftung
Eduard Truninger AG
Zumtobel Lighting GmbH
Nestlé
Co-Sponsors:
Abt Bodenbeläge
Belcolor Flooring
K. Schweizer AG
Schweizerisches Generalkonsulat São Paulo
Mediapartner:
swiss-architects.com
videocompany
Press section >>
Order the publication >>
Feature ART TV >>
Installation views
Bienal Internacional de Arquitetura de São Paulo >>
Swiss Architecture Museum Basel >>
ARCH/SCAPES was the Swiss contribution to the 7th International Architecture Biennial São Paulo 2007 ‘Architecture – The Public and the Private’ commissioned by the Swiss Federal Office of Culture, curated by Francesca Ferguson and realised by S AM Swiss Architecture Museum.
A R C H / S C A P E S features
Materials define the Mood
EM2N Architekten | Mathias Müller | Daniel Niggli, Zürich
Against the Housing Grid
UNDEND Architektur AG, Zürich
New Scale for the Urban Periphery
pool Architekten, Zürich
Invasion of Nature
Officina del Paesaggio, Sophie Agata Ambroise, Lugano
Architecture of Transitions
Niklaus Graber & Christoph Steiger Architekten, Luzern
Against Nature
Luigi Snozzi, Locarno
Terraces as Topography
Giraudi Wettstein Architekten ETH / BSA / SIA, Lugano
Framing Nature
Architekturbüro Peter Zumthor, Haldenstein
Value through Specificity
Gion A. Caminada Architekt BSA / SIA, Vrin
Modern Form, Traditional Construction
LOCAL ARCHITECTURE, Lausanne
Classical Exterior, Conceded Interior World
Bonnard / Woeffray Architectes FAS SIA, Monthey
Monumental Simulation
Valerio Olgiati, Chur
Filigree within an Untamed Landscape
Conzett, Bronzini, Gartmann AG, Chur
The Vista Takes Off
Corinna Menn Architektin ETH/SIA, Chur
The “Shining”
Studio Monte Rosa,
Professor Andrea Deplazes, Marcel Baumgartner
Departement Architektur, ETH Zürich
Client & Project Patron:
Bundesamt für Kultur
der schweizerischen Eidgenossenschafft
Main Sponsors:
Holcim Foundation
Ernst Göhner Stiftung
Eduard Truninger AG
Zumtobel Lighting GmbH
Nestlé
Co-Sponsors:
Abt Bodenbeläge
Belcolor Flooring
K. Schweizer AG
Schweizerisches Generalkonsulat São Paulo
Mediapartner:
swiss-architects.com
videocompany