Bern, Switzerland
Renzo Piano Building Workshop

Renzo Piano Building Workshop teams with the earth to create an undulating setting for the Paul Klee Center in Bern, Switzerland

By Suzanne Stephens

	Click images to enlarge Photo © Christian Richters

The bold, sinuous curves of the Paul Klee Center in Bern, Switzerland, seem surprising considering the discreet, unassertive museum design for which its architect, Renzo Piano Building Workshop, is known. Where are the rectilinear, loftlike spaces with their luminous toplighting and elegant detailing so integral to Piano’s oeuvre since the Menil Collection in Houston of 1987? In this 12-acre site in the Schöngrün area east of Bern, grand, roiling, serpentine forms rising from the pastoral contours of the countryside suggest another side to Piano’s architectural persona.

Yet, as compelling as this muscular architecture-as-earthwork is, visitors familiar with the small-scale, delicate art of Paul Klee may be disappointed to see the painting, drawings, and watercolors of the lyrical 20th-century Modern master installed in two large galleries that omit natural light altogether.

Piano’s turning away from toplighting and toward the topographical at the Klee Center reflects the set of complex circumstances that brought the 160,000-square-foot museum into being. The formation of the $86 million center, created by a public and private partnership, began with a commitment by Klee’s heirs to displaying the work of the artist, born in 1879, who spent much of his childhood and the last years of his life in Bern, where he died in 1940. In 1997, his daughter-in-law Livia Klee-Meyer proposed donating 638 of Klee’s artworks to the canton (state), the city, and a special governmental body, the Civic Community of Bern, if they would build the center by 2006. In addition, Klee’s grandson, Alexander Klee, promised a permanent loan of 650 works; this, added to a city-owned collection, would form a total of 4,000 items, the bulk of them drawings.

The museum’s program called for a main hall 18,837 square feet in size, and a 9,150-square-foot gallery for temporary exhibitions, as well as studios for art education––adult and children. Also included was a 300-seat auditorium for concerts (Klee was also a musician), along with the usual complement of storage space, conservation areas, and offices. In designing the center, Piano, and senior partner in charge Bernard Plattner, worked with the Bernese architectural practice ARB Architects, headed by Kurt Aellen, and the London office of Arup to come up with a scheme that divided the museum into three hill-like forms. A 492-foot-long glazed concourse along the entrance facade connects the “ hills,” a series of parabolic arches formed from bent steel profiles that gradually merge into the grassy knoll at the rear of the complex.

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the People Architect Renzo Piano Building Workshop 34, rue des Archives 75004 Paris France tel: +33 1 44 61 49 00, fax: +33 1 42 78 01 98 E-mail: rpbw@rpbw.com www.rpbw.com Principal: Renzo Piano Senior partner in charge: Bernard Plattner Associated Architect ARB Architects Kurt Aellen, principal Engineer(s) Arup, London (Bob Lang, structural; Andrew Sedgewick, m/e/p) www.arup.com Photographer Christian Richters Christian Richters Fotograf Zumsandestrasse 23 D-48145 Munster, Germany Tel: 49 251 277447 Fax: 49 251 27438

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