Braunwald: Place of Longing II

Focus Architecture & Material FS21

Module Leader Prof. Lando Rossmaier

Guests Prof. Gion A. Caminada, Flurin Bisig
Lecturers Prof. Lando Rossmaier
Experts Yves Dusseiller, Prof. Dr. Uwe Teutsch, Thomas Rimer
Assistant Anthony Frank

Create Context with Your Own Fiction
Last semester, we dedicated ourselves to an actual request from a client in Glarner Grosstal. The goal was to create an artificial lake along the Linth below Hätzingen. Holiday and apartment homes would be docked there.
A natural hollow formed the lake. That accentuated the empty space between the towns of Adlenbach and Hätzingen. So far, so good, but how and whether to build a holiday village there, indeed if one wished to refer to the familiar images at all, was something we explored under the title ‘Living Fallow Lands: Retreat & Recreation in Hätzingen, Glarus’. We wanted to solve the paradox of touristic concerns. We wanted to understand the tightrope walk that had to be mastered and where the unrecognised opportunities lay. Can we make a contribution of lasting relevance? For that, we needed an entire semester and several discussions with our guests, Thomas Paturet and Gordian Blumenthal.

One of the biggest hurdles – and there were several – was that we were supposedly working in an open field around an empty space and yet every intervention related to the organic structure of settlement, however much some tried to overcome that. The romantic projects that were artificially simulating a connection to nature had to admit that their strategy would not work. The more successful ones were those that could, on the one hand, preserve the relationship to the existing and yet, on the other hand, make a fresh and strong contribution by way of their own personal idea of recreation and a change to the usual ideas about housing. It turned out that those works that were based on existing settlement structures or spatial typographies but then overwrote them with their own fiction were the most successful ones. The new needs the existing. Both sides are necessary, because the unfamiliar needs the familiar so that what is different is perceived as new and not just as foreign.

With Hans Döllgast’s Künstlerhof or Zumthor’s Dierauer House, we learned how new things can be created from the familiar. A simple, repetitive courtyard was fitted with a slender, tall, round tower. In the case of the Dierauer House, an traditional setting was inscribed with a new twist with a little of the empirical in the setting and a crosswise roof. But is such a strategy suitable for every design task? What if it needs more than a de-familiarisation, if the place is not so much supposed to affect the building as the building shapes the space, if it needs more ‘impact’ to revive the impoverished place?

Braunwald as a Place of Longing
For this inversion of the theme, we go to Braunwald. That car-free holiday village is located above our studio. Its southern slope was transformed from an Alpine pasture into a chic spa town and later into a holiday village. Like many other holiday resorts, Braunwald has also shrunk because of lack of demand. Some claim that this is due to the inaccessible, distant location, which can only be reached via a funicular. Some voices express a longing for a road into the valley.

But what is it really lacking? To answer that, you have to know not only the situation in Braunwald but also the situation of the entire Glarus countryside. Our primary goal should not be to build for tourists. That, we learned, would be a mistake. We want to build for the people of Glarus and the surrounding cantons. Tourists will then come of their own accord. That is the simple basis for authentic tourism – and sustainable tourism, because the place will continue to function even if one day there are no longer any visitors.

We don’t believe the place can be revived by building more holiday homes or improved by addressing the question of access. Those working from home and digital nomads will not have sufficient influence either. Our thesis is that a new, strong narrative is needed. A powerful, present architectural complement on a large scale. Of the size and effect of a “fairy-tale” or “music” hotel. That is the ambition that we want to pursue with you this semester.

We will determine the right place in Braunwald and the fiction that will sufficiently viable by discussing them with residents, hoteliers and engineers. That will be the open and challenging part of the task. Our hope is that architecture can create a place of longing for the long term, an auratic original in Walter Benjamin’s sense. Perhaps some of you will manage it this semester. We are looking forward to this venture with you.

Program, Research, Final Projects

Alpine Atelier Glarus

Focus Architecture & Material – Fall 2020 Research on Building & Landscapes

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Focus Architecture & Material – Fall 2020
Research on Building & Landscapes