atelier 5's flamatt I

We stopped in the wee town of Flamatt to gawk a couple adorable mini-brutes by Atelier 5. Five architects founded Atelier 5 in 1955 in Bern with four fo the five having met in the studio of Hans Brechbühler, a student of Le Corbusier. They are still in business, albeit with different primaries.

Flamatt I was the first notable realized project for the firm and a place to experiment on their masterpiece, the Halen housing estate. Flamatt I include five terraced apartments and a studio all topped with a roof garden. The public spaces are on the second floor with the bedrooms on the third floor. The first floors provide entrances and storage rooms. Design-wise, the structure is clearly influenced by Le Corbusier, including the interior colors in each south-facing patio. Flamatt II and III are also on-site at the confluence of a creek and river.

We learned about this brut-eauty via heartbrut.

 

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einstein in bern

 

 Although there's not a lot of Modernism in Bern proper (although our parking garage was pleasantly Brutalist), we stopped in to visit Einstein's home when he wrote his first scientific papers and the baby-eating pedestal.

Albert Einstein lived in Bern for only a couple years, from 1902 to 1905, but his home, now known as the Einstein House, is preserved, largely because he spent his annus mirabilis (extraordinary year) in the apartment where he developed his theory relativity (and proved the existence of atoms and molecules [and other stuff along the way]) while he worked in a patent office.

Ye olde towne Bern is storybook gorgeous and a UNESCO-recognized locale. The apartment is on the third floor just off the main artery through the middle of town. The apartment is TINY considering he lived there with his first wife and infant son.

Just down the street is the Child Eater of Bern. This statue of a hungry dude eating a sack of babies is almost 500 years old, and no one knows what the heck it's supposed to mean. There are other, non-PC statues out and about the town.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

a pissoir

 

the brutalist Saint Klemenz Church in Bettlack, Switzerland

The primary reason for venturing to Switzerland was to gape and gawk at these hyper-cubic Brutalist churches. They are sights and sites to beyond! Massive, concrete, and crenulated out the wazoo, the attention to detail in every odd corner of the spaces is remarkable. We also find great pleasure is the fusion of the ultra-modern with the dusty echoes of biblical imagery. There's something of a Dune vibe in these spaces as well (thinking of the spectacular future-Brutes of the recent movies).

This was the first one we visited, and it was amazing. Everywhere you looked was fascinating composition and details. Designed by Walter Maria Förderer (1928-2006) and built between 1964 and 1969. As we venture through the mountains, we'll see several other of Förderer's designs. Förderer was Swiss, so he was a local architectural hero. He's considered a post-functionalist, which were the beginnings of deconstructivism but not out of hand like Post-Modern. He earned that moniker because not everything you see is purely functional. On the other hand, this is a church, which has expectations of ornamentation, creating the opportunity for Förderer to have some (actually, a great deal of!) fun. Not surprisingly, he eventually gave up architecture in 1978 to become a sculptor.

All the churches we visited were open except one, even if there was nobody there. For the most part, we had the churches to ourselves except for the occasional Brute-head. 

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