Centre Paul Klee - Renzo Piano, Bern 2005

The Centre Paul Klee is a museum dedicated to the artist Paul Klee, it features about 40% of Paul Klee's entire pictorial oeuvre. 

The Centre is a multifunctional space: in addition to being the home of a permanent collection of Klee's artworks, it also has temporary exhibition space, a concert hall, and an education centre. The shape of the building recalls the curves of the surrounding landscape, thus becoming an integral part of it.

The Centre is composed of three "hills" made of glass and steel. Each hill corresponds to a different function of the centre, and runs through the life of the artist - a painter, a musician and a poet.

The light, potentially harmful to the extremely fragile artworks, many of which are on paper, is diffused by a system of translucent screens that delicately reflect it.

This three waves rise and fall over a field directly adjoining the cemetery where Klee lies buried and the Sculpture Park Martha Müller-Lüthi.

The Sculpture Park stands in a topographical relationship to the local conditions of the place. Rows of silver birch trees and six organically arranged sculptures of bronze and oxidised weathering steel, border the undulating path through the garden landscape. They are works by Alicia Penalba, Oscar Wiggli and Yves Dana.

Villa "Le Lac" Le Corbusier

L – C 1954 : 1922, 1923, I boarded the Paris-Milan express several times, or the Orient Express (Paris-Ankara). In my pocket was the plan of a house. A plan without a site ? The plan of a house in search of a plot of ground ? Yes !

The Villa “Le Lac” is a little bijou of ingenuity and functionalism – an architectural manifesto where one can find the key ideas of the program developed by Le Corbusier during the 1920s for his famous “white houses”. Situated in Corseaux, Switzerland, the Villa “Le Lac” is one of the architect's most personal and inventive works.

This small detached house was designed by Le Corbusier and by his cousin, Pierre Jeanneret,  for Le Corbusier’s parents and was built in 1923-24. The architectural drawings had been prepared even before a building site had been chosen.

The Villa "Le Lac" is the first example of modern architecture by Le Corbusier in Switzerland, and announces three of the “five points for a new architecture”: the use of the roof as a sun deck or garden (its first application is seen here), the free floor plan and the ribbon window (11 meters long in this case). This “machine for living”, marks a decisive stage and precedes the Villa Savoye, a masterpiece of 20th century architecture.

The house is 64 square meters (16m x 4m) consisting of a living room, a bedroom, a small salon that could be converted to a bedroom for guests, a hall, a bathroom, a kitchen and a closet.

The house, as it stands today, has remained quite true to the original plan. An upper annex was added on the northwest (1931), the north façades were surfaced with hot-dip galvanized steel sheets (1931), and the south face was coated with aluminum sheets (1950) in order to correct structural problems caused by the lake and cheap construction materials  . The wall that closes off the property on the north was not part of the original plan; it was added in 1931, when the new international road replaced the old “Chemin Bergère”.

Le Corbusier’s parents moved into the house in 1924. Georges Edouard Jeanneret, the architect’s father, only lived there for one year. Nevertheless, his mother, Marie Charlotte Amélie Jeanneret-Perret, remained in the house through her 100th birthday; after her death in 1960, Albert Jeanneret (Le Corbusier’s brother) lived there by himself until 1973.

Haus Annalisa

Haus Annalisa

Peter Zumthor

Leis, Switzerland

Annalisa’s Wooden house is built in Leis, a small hamlet on the valley slope above Vals village, situated 1526m above sea level.

A winding pleasant path connects Vals with the village of Leis. The Barroque Chapel of St. Nicolas at the highest point in the hamlet as a reference point ,outstands among volumes and folded roofs.

The ground plan of the house is cross-shaped. On the ground floor where one enters the house, there is an ample room for many guests: children, grandchildren, friends.

The personal living area is on the second floor. A large dining table stands in the centre of the house; grouped around it are the living area that looks out over the entire valley, the kitchen, the bedroom accessed by three steps via a narrow passage and, in front of the dining table, the hall with the large terrace facing southwest.

These four rooms are opened to the landscape like panorama platfomrs.

It is unavoidable to make a reference to Haus Luzi (located in Jenaz, Switzerland, and built in 2002) which formally has many similarities. The completely glazed room with balconies also face all four directions. The views of the landscape framed by the rooms are impressive: pictures of the village, pictures of the landscape, the seasons passing by.

LOCATION

SKETCHES FIRST VERSION

SKETCHES FIRST VERSION

SKETCHES FIRST VERSION

SKETCH SECOND VERSION

SKETCH

FIRST SKETCHES SECOND VERSION

FIRST SKETCHES SECOND VERSION

FLOOR PLAN FINAL VERSION

MODEL SECOND VERSION

MODEL SECOND VERSION

MODEL SECOND VERSION

MODEL

PLAN GROUND FLOOR SECOND VERSION

PLAN FIRST FLOOR SECOND VERSION

EAST FACADE SECOND VERSION

SECTION SECOND VERSION

SECTION SECOND VERSION

SECTION SECOND VERSION