¿September in Switzerland?
Why the devil not?
Can think of worse places to spend late summer, early autumn.
Not that the trip to the Confoederatio, welcome as it sounds, was planned. Rather, in context of preparing our list of recommendations for new architecture and design exhibitions opening in September 2025, we realised we had a quintet of easily recommendable Swiss exhibitions opening in September 2025.
Specifically a quintet of Swiss architecture based exhibitions opening in September 2025.
A quintet that appeared as easily recommendable as the sacred Swiss quintet of fondues, muesli, bank accounts, multi-function knives and multi-function modular architecture-cum-furniture systems.
And quintet that should, hopefully, be instructive and informative not only in terms of their specific subjects, but in context of a more general advancing of appreciations of architecture, the (hi)story of architecture and human society's relationships with the environment in builds for itself.
In Switzerland and beyond.
Our September Switzerland Special takes us all to Lausanne, Winterthur, Basel, Zürich and Riga, the lattermost will make sense once we get there....
One was born in Palazzolo dello Stella, Italy, in 1927; one was born in New York City, USA, in 1921; one was born in Montreal, Canada, in 1927. All three contributed in their own ways to the developments of architecture, of Architecture and the City, in the continents of Europe and North America in the course of the 20th century.
That's known. Or should be known.
Produced by, and originally presented in, the Centre Culturel Canadien, Paris, where we missed it, Crossed Histories seeks to expand that known through exploring how the work of architecture critic Ada Louise Huxtable and architects Phyllis Lambert and Gae Aulenti inter-twines, inter-laces, and in doing so enables novel approaches to not only the oeuvres of the trio, individually and in dialogue, but also to the role of females in the (hi)story, (his)tory, of architecture.
An exploration based on discussions around 5 buildings/projects spanning 4 decades - the Seagram Building and Plaza, New York; Pennsylvania Station, New York; the Centre canadien d’architecture, Montreal; the Musée d’Orsay, Paris; Piazzale Cadorna, Milan - which, according to the curators, unite the trio, when arguably ex post facto, via 3 themes: relationships with Modernism, historical preservation, architecture as a public concern.
Themes that in their contemporaneousness also tend to imply the ongoing relevance of Huxtable, Lambert and Aulenti on Architecture and the City. An ongoing relevance that should be more popularly known than it is. Crossed Histories should be an opportunity to rectify that.
In addition to the work of Huxtable, Lambert and Aulenti in the then, the now and the future, and the chance to engage with the positions of a Huxtable, Lambert and Aulenti, a further key element of Crossed Histories' discussion is, as the curators argue, the fact that the archives of Gae Aulenti, Ada Louise Huxtable and Phyllis Lambert are existent, voluminous and used. A genuine rarity in context of female architects. In context of female creatives of all hues.
A lack of archival resources that, as oft noted, lamented, in these dispatches, is one of the reasons for the (relative) anonymity of so many female architects, and designers, from decades past, the (relative) lack of females voices echoing from the past: women were there, were working, were realising important and instructive theoretical and practical projects, but aside from the few works we have, the greater many left very little tangible to represent them posthumously.
Through demonstrating how the archives of Gae Aulenti, Ada Louise Huxtable and Phyllis Lambert can be used to construct a view of architecture (hi)story that adds to the (hi)story we have, Add to the Cake we have, Crossed Histories should thus, hopefully, also serve as admonishment to contemporary museums, and to all contemporary architects and designers outwith dominant groups, to ensure the archive documents are being collected and collated for coming generations.
Crossed Histories. Gae Aulenti, Ada Louise Huxtable, Phyllis Lambert, on Architecture and the City is scheduled to open at Archizoom, École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), SG Building, Place Ada Lovelace, 1015 Lausanne on Wednesday September 24th and run until Friday November 28th.
Further details can be found at www.epfl.ch
In 1937 the French artist Amédée Ozenfant, that long-time collaborator with Le Corbusier, before they spectacularly fell out, opined, "The experiences of the scientist Charles Henry have shown that colour sensation precedes that of form. The form is always seen by means of colour", continuing that "colour always modifies the form to some extent" and thus, for Ozenfant, "colour is an essential element of architecture".1
A position, one imagines, shared by the folks at Domaine de Boisbuchet, a design and architecture research centre based in central France.
Certainly a role of, an importance of, colour in context of architecture Domaine de Boisbuchet aim to discuss in context of their guest exhibition at the Gewerbemuseum, Winterthur, via a presentation that promises to not only explore the Farben der Architektur, Colours of Architecture, of the title from the use of local materials in global vernacular traditions, including, if one can refer to it as 'vernacular', the ca. 20,000 year old paintings of the Grotte de Lascaux near Montignac, France, over the avant-gardes of the 1920s and 30s, including works by the likes of Alvar Aalto or Le Corbusier - possibly Le Corbusier & Amédée Ozenfant, but probably not - and on to contemporary uses, but also via the results of workshops and residencies at Domaine de Boisbuchet. The latter that creative, oft speculative, research and experimentation that is such an important component of Domaine de Boisbuchet.
Taking an expanded definition of the Architektur of its title Farben der Architektur promises to discuss colour not only in context of structures per se, but also in context of the interiors of structures via examples of furniture design, applied arts and interior design projects by the likes of, and amongst others, older practitioners such as, for example Jean Prouvé, Gerrit Rietveld or Charlotte Perriand - the latter one hopes without the Le Corbusier who tends to overshadow her oeuvre - and younger talents such as, for example, Nathanaël Abeill, Ateliers Vitrail Saint-Joseph or Barbara Schwärzler.
Thus an exhibition that should not only allow for considerations on the relationships between the interiors and exteriors of buildings, nor only help explain that while colour has long been a component of the built environment, questions of its use, its function and the why? of its inclusion have fluctuated, questions that invariably are and were components of wider social and cultural questions, but that in doing such should also allow for a questioning of a contemporary use of colour in exterior and interior architecture as well as in urban planning. That question of why our interior and exterior spaces are the colours they are. And if they couldn't, shouldn't other colours.
Farben der Architektur. Die Domaine de Boisbuchet zu Gast is scheduled to open at the Gewerbemuseum Winterthur, Kirchplatz 14, 8400 Winterthur on Friday September 12th and run until Sunday March 15th.
Further details can be found at https://gewerbemuseum.ch
A recurring rhetoric tool of the Swiss sociologist and architecture/urban planning theoretician and critic Lucius Burckhardt was a stereotypical tourist gaze of Switzerland as forests, lakes, mountains and heavily-belled cows juxtaposed with a stereotypical tourist driving through contemporary Switzerland... shaking their head, unable to comprehend the industrial facilities, concrete housing blocks and 'postmodern' experimentations they were witnessing, and invariably opining that the Swiss simply didn't understand Switzerland. That the Swiss had ruined Switzerland.
Which they may or may not have done. That's a subject for another day.
But, and regardless of the importance of tourism to your economy or of the tourist gaze in the ubiquitous marketing angles of your most important consumer goods conglomerates, since the Switzerland of yore was realised architecture in Switzerland has, had to, move on: as noted in context of Tsuyoshi Tane: The Garden House at the Vitra Design Museum Gallery, Weil am Rhein, the collection of (largely) vernacular houses that forms Ballenberg in central Switzerland "is a museum not a village", and rightly so. A museum that one can explore and learn from, but not a conurbation responsive to or meaningful for contemporary society. Swiss or otherwise.
But where is contemporary Swiss architecture? Where is the built environment in the contemporary Switzerland?
By way of seeking an approach to answers the S AM Swiss Architecture Museum, Basel, instigated in 2023 the Swiss Architecture Yearbook, a biannual publication that beyond being a listing of contemporary projects selected as being exemplary also understands itself as a component of contemporary discourses: you don't have to like everything, or indeed anything, featured in the yearbook, but you should engage with them and the positions from which they arose.
By way of launching the second edition the exhibition SAY Swiss Architecture Yearbook will present... we're not entirely sure. For all that we're admirers of S AM, and their programme, they do belong to those institutions who prefer not to publicly talk about their exhibitions in advance of the opening. Which is just plain daft.
But what we can say, because Park Books as publishers of the Yearbook are much more forthcoming with information, is that the 2025 Yearbook features 30 projects realised in Switzerland between 2022 and 2024, supplemented by 6 essays on contemporary architecture in Switzerland. And which, we strongly suspect, will also all be presented in context of SAY Swiss Architecture Yearbook.
A book possibly to read on your way to Switzerland, by way of avoiding any surprises. Or read some Burckhardt. Or both.
SAY Swiss Architecture Yearbook is scheduled to open at S AM Schweizerisches Architekturmuseum, Steinenberg 7, 4051 Basel on Saturday September 27th and run until Sunday November 11th.
Further details can be found at www.sam-basel.org
In 1975 the Council of Europe staged the European Architectural Heritage Year, an event under the motto 'A Future for Our Past', that sought to "awaken the interest and pride of the European peoples in their common architectural heritage"; "draw attention to the grave dangers which threaten it"; and "secure the action required for its conservation, not merely for the sake of its historic significance, but also for its contribution to the enrichment of the quality of life".2
Fifty years later ZAZ Bellerive – Zentrum Architektur Zürich seek to question the practice of listed building preservation that has arisen over the past five decades. And to ask for whom is listed building preservation undertaken today?
Questions that, yes, brings one back to Lucius Burckhardt, a path that is unavoidable when reflecting on architecture in context of Switzerland.
Questions ZAZ Bellerive aim to approach with Von Pflege, Wert und Denkmal in context of of three themes: Material value & changes in meaning, What is something worth – and how does this value change; Material knowledge & participation, Who understands materials – and how is this knowledge conveyed?; Social Justice & Representation, Whose past is remembered – and who remains invisible?
Questions that, arguably, we'll argue, as we suspect will the curators, aren't necessarily always, if ever, components of either listed building legislation nor processes.
But should they be?
How does one define and realise a 'future for our past'?
Through linking 1975's European Architectural Heritage Year with today via contemporary questions, Von Pflege, Wert und Denkmal should help focus thoughts on the role, function, justification of listed building preservation in context of our contemporary (and unknowable future) realities, while also allowing for alternative perspectives on the built environment and urban spaces as active processes for society, and not an academic or artistic practice. As democratic processes.
Von Pflege, Wert und Denkmal: For What It’s Worth is scheduled to open at ZAZ Bellerive – Zentrum Architektur Zürich, Höschgasse 3, 8008 Zürich on Friday September 5th and run until Sunday January 18th.
Further details can be found at www.zaz-bellerive.ch
Established in Basel in 1896 as one of the pioneers of the contemporary global pharmaceutical industry, Roche quickly expanded beyond the borders of Switzerland such that, by all accounts, in 1916 the Russian Empire accounted for a quarter of the company's business. A key Russian Empire market that in the wake of the 1918 October Revolution became, let's say, difficult to navigate, forcing Roche's, now former Russian Empire business, to relocate to the newly independent Latvia, where in 1933 Latvian architect Aleksandrs Klinklāvs realised a new company HQ: a construction deliciously caught between Functionalism and Art Deco, a self-confidently forward looking contemporary work, a little to the north of Riga's historic city centre.
A self-confidently forward looking contemporary administrative building in Riga by an establishing Latvian architect that was joined in the Roche property portfolio in 1936 by an equally self-confidently forward looking contemporary administrative building in Basel by the long established Swiss architect, Otto Rudolf Salvisberg.
Two works for Roche that not only, arguably, mark an active embracing by Roche of the novel positions of the early 20th century, but that will also be central components of Courage and Care. Architecture and Design's exploration of the role of architecture and design in and for the development of Roche, in the Roche Vision, certainly in the course of the 20th century.
Will arguably dominate the Architecture of the title.
The Design of its title being explored primarily in context of graphic design and advertising design, including via contributions by the likes of Theo Ballmer or Jan Tschichold to the development of Roche's use of graphics. If we would add, advertising that also poses the question why pharmaceuticals need advertising? Surely if they're necessary, and work, that's the most convincing argument there is?
A question we hope Courage and Care and will pose. If it doesn't you should.
And while we're being difficult, trolling big pharma, there is, for us, something a little distressing about the euphoric, hagiographic language of the Museum of Decorative Arts and Design when talking about a Swiss pharmaceutical conglomerate; at times the information reads as if it was written by an overly excited, energy drink saturated, Roche PR intern and not a museum. But that may just be our cynical reading of it.
And we're sure that the presentation itself will be more sober.
A presentation that in addition to archive documents, sketches and plans will also feature photos by the Swiss photographer Robert Spreng and the Latvian photographer Roberts Johansons, thereby not only underscoring the Latvian-Swiss connection inherent in the narrative being told, inherent in the (hi)story of an oh so Swiss concern, but also allowing for differentiated perspectives on the place of the (briefly) independent Latvia in the inter-War decades of the early 20th century. That period that is so celebrated today for its avant-gardes, its renewal, its evolutions, its questioning of the past and the future,. Albeit invariably in context of the western half of Europe. The Swiss part of the Latvian-Swiss connection inherent in Courage and Care. The Latvian questioning being popularly ignored.
Thereby also allowing for more probable reflections on early 20th century Europe. And an early 21st century Europe where Latvia's independence is a lot shakier than it really should be.
And after having viewed Courage and Care you can undertake the short walk north from the Museum of Decorative Arts and Design in Riga's historic city centre to the freshly renovated Roche Latvia building at Miera iela 25 and reflect on all that you have seen and learned in direct conversation with Aleksandrs Klinklāvs' self-confidently forward looking 1933 creation.
A route that if you take the slightly longer version past Klinklāvs' 1937 Riga Municipal Employees' Health Insurance Fund Building at Skolas iela 5, his late 1930s Latvian Ministry of Finance at Smilšu iela 1, and on past Roche to his mid 1930s (former) G. Ērenpreis bicycle factory at Brīvības gat. 193, should allow for a little more context on Aleksandrs Klinklāvs.
A little more context on 1930s architecture in Europe.
And an highly instructive alternative viewing of Riga.
Courage and Care. Architecture and Design: The Roche Vision is scheduled to open at the Museum of Decorative Arts and Design, 10 Skārņu iela, 1050 Riga on Saturday September 13th and run until Sunday November 23rd.
Further details can be found at https://lnmm.gov.lv
...
For all in or near Zürich until or before Sunday November 23rd, Pavillon Le Corbusier are showing Vers une architecture: Reflections which not only fits in nicely with the above quintet, geographically and thematically, but is as easy to recommend. Which in this case we can say with confidence, 'cause we've seen it.......
1Amédée Ozenfant, Colour - The English Tradition, The Architectural Review, Vol 81, Issue 482, January 1937
2European Architectural Heritage Year 1975 - Final Resolutions, Launching Conference, Zürich, 4 - 7 July 1973, page 5
