Danish firm BIG unveils their newest design – a spiraling structure of steel and glass that juts down into the earth at La Vallée de Joux, Switzerland, for luxury watchmaker company Audemars Piguet.
BIG, along with HG Merz, Luchinger & Meyer and Muller Illien were commissioned by the company to design their newest flagship, which will also be an expansion of the company’s headquarters.
The 25,800-sf pavilion will house the company’s museum, called Maison des Fondateurs. According to Jasmine Audemars, president of Audemars Piguet’s Board of Directors, the museum will be “a place for people to enjoy and share the passion of watchmaking.”
The spiral shape is a storytelling device for the company’s history; as visitors walk down, they are guided through a linear sequence of spaces and events through lounges, galleries and workshops, until they are eventually led to the heritage building in a workshop where the company originated.
In addition to the pavilion, the building will include an underground guest house with windows camouflaged under grassy hills, providing views over the Vallée de Joux.
Bjarke Ingels, founding partner of BIG, comments on the design: “Watchmaking like architecture is the art and science of invigorating inanimate matter with intelligence and performance. It is the art of imbuing metals and minerals with energy, movement, intelligence and measure – to bring it to life in the form of telling time. Unlike most machines and most buildings today that have a disconnect between the body and the mind, the hardware and the software, for the Maison des Fondateurs we have attempted to completely integrate the geometry and the performance, the form and the function, the space and the structure, the interior and the exterior in a symbiotic hole”.
“La Maison des Fondateurs not only symbolises the deep connection between the brand and its origins but also its spirit of independence and avant-garde,” Audemars adds.
Related Stories
Sponsored | | Mar 25, 2014
Johns Hopkins chooses SLENDERWALL for a critical medical facility reconstruction
After decades of wear, the hand-laid brick envelope of the Johns Hopkins nine-story Nelson/Harvey inpatient facility began failing. SLENDERWALL met the requirements for renovation.
| Mar 25, 2014
World's tallest towers: Adrian Smith, Gordon Gill discuss designing Burj Khalifa, Kingdom Tower
The design duo discusses the founding of Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architects and the design of the next world's tallest, Kingdom Tower, which will top the Burj Khalifa by as much as a kilometer.
| Mar 24, 2014
Shigeru Ban receives 2014 Pritzker Architecture Prize
Shigeru Ban, a Tokyo-born, 56-year-old architect with offices in Tokyo, Paris, and New York, is rare in the field of architecture. He designs elegant, innovative work for private clients, and uses the same inventive and resourceful design approach for his extensive humanitarian efforts.
| Mar 24, 2014
Snøhetta unveils plans for serpentine mountain hotel
The winding hotel and apartment building will be built between the mountains and the sea in remote Glåpen, Norway.
| Mar 24, 2014
Frank Lloyd Wright's S.C. Johnson Research Tower to open to the public—32 years after closing
The 14-story tower, one of only two Wright-designed high-rises to be built, has been off limits to the public since its construction in 1950.
Sponsored | | Mar 21, 2014
Kameleon Color paint creates color-changing, iridescent exterior for Exploration Tower at Port Canaveral
Linetec finishes Firestone’s UNA-CLAD panels, achieving a one-of-a-kind, dynamic appearance with the first use of Valspar’s new Kameleon Color
| Mar 21, 2014
Forget wood skyscrapers - Check out these stunning bamboo high-rise concepts [slideshow]
The Singapore Bamboo Skyscraper competition invited design teams to explore the possibilities of using bamboo as the dominant material in a high-rise project for the Singapore skyline.
| Mar 21, 2014
Pier Carlo Bontempi to receive Richard H. Driehaus Prize from Notre Dame
Established in 2003 by the Notre Dame School of Architecture, the $200,000 Richard H. Driehaus Prize is awarded to a living architect whose work embodies the highest ideals of traditional and classical architecture in contemporary society, and creates a positive cultural, environmental and artistic impact.
| Mar 21, 2014
How to get more referrals
If you’re having a hard time attracting new referrals, here are a few techniques for increasing the number of interactions with potential clients.
| Mar 20, 2014
Common EIFS failures, and how to prevent them
Poor workmanship, impact damage, building movement, and incompatible or unsound substrate are among the major culprits of EIFS problems.
