3.7.2012 – Issue 3 - On Giacometti – Farrell Yvonne, Degelo Heinrich, Ursprung Philip – Reviews, Studio, Videos

Giacometti Museum in Stampa

Final Review: Heinrich Degelo, Yvonne Farrell and Philip Ursprung

In the winter semester 2010, we have proposed to design a small exhibition building for the famous artist family from Stampa.

The museum is situated in the Bregaglia valley, where once one of the main trading routes crossing the Alps over the Septimer Pass began. The impressing physical presence of tall mountains and the culture and language from Italy made its influence to the Giacometti’s, whose memory in connection to the place, the project has to shelter. The “Giacometti Museum” integrates the Valley of Bregaglia in the larger context, to formulate an alternative and complementary program to the cultural facilities in the surrounding centres and to contribute to the economic development Valley.

Both, question about context and content our project has to deal with. As the mimesis is an impossible task for architects, conceptual thinking is the difficult way. And also, in our hands, the architectural thinking of materiality has to be achieved: significant and ritual space, light (and its opposite: shadow), limits (walls, ceilings, and their opposites: holes) and closer: textures and movements.

Four locations around Giacometti’s atelier were proposed. Each location presents a different character and a different relationship with the village and the landscape: the first site is close connected with the atelier, the second with the existing village, the third with the river and the road along the valley and the fourth with the mountains and the landscape.