Architecture Biennale: Golden Lion for Swiss Pavilion
At this year's Venice Architecture Biennale, a team from ETH Zurich won the Golden Lion for the best national contribution.
The Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia had commissioned the team of architects consisting of Alessandro Bosshard, Li Tavor, Matthew van der Ploeg and Ani Vihervaara to realize the Swiss Pavilion. The four scientific staff members of ETH Zurich decided to use in their project Svizzera 240: House Tour to bring into focus what is not normally seen at first glance: Interior spaces in contemporary housing.
As is well known, apartments today consist of volumes with a height of 240 cm, mostly with brown parquet flooring, white skirting boards, white sockets, white walls, white doors, chrome door handles, white windows, white built-in cupboards and gray terrace flooring. However, the architects at ETH wanted to show that these standardized and neutral spaces do not remain empty, but are filled with the ideas and expectations of their inhabitants. To bring out the encounter with space, the curators calculated individual rooms in relation to the standard height of 240 cm. In this way, the rooms grow and shrink continuously during a tour of the house.
Implenia is the main sponsor of the Swiss Pavilion and says it is delighted to receive this award and congratulates the project members. The construction company has been supporting ETH Zurich for several years, sponsoring a professorship in the field of innovative and industrial construction.
