Becoming Landmarks

Architecture and Landscape Projects for the Grisons and South Tyrol

Curators:
Ariana Pradal, Köbi Gantenbein (for the Grisons)
Susanne Waiz (for South Tyrol)

It seems daring for South Tyrol to compare itself with the Grisons, a mecca of contemporary architecture and a shining example in dealing with the resource ‘landscape’. The exhibition put together by Ariana Pradal and Köbi Gantenbein comprises 20 high-caliber projects in the Swiss canton: from the 105 m high hotel tower on the Schatzalp above Davos to the careful renovation of dilapidated stables in the Safien valley, from the so-called Porta Alpina, the mega-project for connecting the Gotthard tunnel to the Surselva, to the only eleven meters long stone bridge for the Via Spluga. The becoming landmarks have been divided into four groups: water landscape, visitors’ landscape, landscape ride, and park landscape. Most of them are not landmarks in the traditional sense, but rather “objects of social, economic, and architectural confidence”, as Köbi Gantenbein writes in his text for the exhibition. They are culturally remarkable and therefore worth being discussed. If they manage to take the hurdles on the way to their realization, they will shape the future landscape of the Grisons.
No doubt, many other buildings that do not have these qualities are also being built in the Grisons. An “ocean of architectural tears” is how Gantenbein calls the tourism buildings, for example, and civil engineering is also cutting broad channels through the landscape of the Grisons. Spatial planning, environmental protection, and construction laws are trying to counteract the massive economic interests. Architecture competitions promote a higher quality of the projects and discussions on them. Thus, a few landmarks are being built after all.

And what about South Tyrol? All in all, the situation can only be rated in degrees below zero: legal regulation measures such as referendums or objections are not part of the local tradition, and the Landesraumordnungsgesetz [territorial development act] has been diluted to a point of uselessness for more than a decade now. Exploiting the landscape is commonly regarded as economically opportune. And the interventions required for that purpose are as massive as banal and lowbrow. Nevertheless, a few important buildings have been built in South Tyrol over the past years: contributions to the architectural culture and landscape that are in danger of being overlooked in the broad field of construction activities. They are the results of planning competitions launched by public administration authorities and projects initiated by unswerving sensitive individuals or committed associations. They start where social and cultural traditions turn into Alpine kitsch; they reveal historical contexts and consolidate the past. They react to their surroundings.

The four groups of the Grisons exhibition are supplemented by another topic: the language landscape.

The residential high-rise buildings for the railway staff, the customs lodges and frontier checkpoints still shape the historical border on the Brenner Pass. But for most witnesses of the times here, all is over. The Schengen Convention has robbed them of their function. The buildings are being used for new purposes, and it seems that, along with them, painful memories shall be wiped out. Whether the new projects will also bring forth Becoming Landmarks, or whether existing landmarks will only be destroyed, remains to be seen.

The exhibition is supported by :

deutsch
italiano

Besucherzentrum, Kindergarten und Grundschule Villnösser Tal
Burger Rudacs Architekten