Best of Switzerland

A celebrity in the field of architecure and design, Switzerland carries a rich and multifaceted creative landscape. The place to be when talking about great exhibitions, it has offered us a behind the scenes on names such as Peter Zumthor, Tomás Saraceno and Christoph Nieman. The new architectures are meant to serve the community, with multifunctional sports centers, day-care centers and public pools. New generations experiment with temporary installations in unexpected places — such as the banks of Lake Geneva — and explore new aesthetics and collaborative approaches. Domusweb editorial staff offers you a selection of the best stories of the past year.

— House 2 – Counter City is a 240 sqm public architectural installation in Zurich, based on an experimental format for collaborative design and construction.

— Tomás Saraceno’s realizable utopia inspired by physical and biological phenomena and his “more-than-human” dwellings are on show in Zurich at the Museum Haus Konstruktiv.

— Designed by architekter CM in Stans, Switzerland, the new day-care centre for disabled people features a ramp conceived both as a meeting place and an activity room.

— In this multifunctional building for sports and events, Manuelle Gautrand links to each other distinct volumes and their functions, under a scenographic metallic shell.

— On show at S AM – Swiss Architecture Museum in Basel, “Schweizweit” tracks down the architecture firms that have developed over the past two decades, through 162 buildings.

— As a final project of the EPFL school, a temporary pavilion stood for over one month in the Lake Geneva, questioning about ornamentation, structure, limits and relationships to the site.

— Invited to stage an exhibition for the Kunsthaus Bregenz’s 20th anniversary, Peter Zumthor creates spaces for displaying the artistic ventures that have inspired him.       

— What would it be of French visual culture without the contribution of Swiss designers who suddently emigrated to Paris? The answer at the Museum für Gestaltung in Zurich.

— The Cartoonmuseum Basel is honouring Christoph Niemann with a solo exhibition, which comprises 120+ original drawings, prints, adapted photographs and animations.

— Designed by illiz architektur in Erlenbach, the swimming pool Allmendli features two intertwined dark cubes that lay on the edge of the ground, only slightly reminiscent of the site’s original layout.


Top: Illiz architektur, Allmendli swimming pool, Erlenbach, Switzerland, 2016. Photo Hertha Hurnaus