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