Archinect - News

The Muzeum Susch is an "alpine chalet, primitive grotto and Bond villain’s lair in one"

2019-01-22T15:59:00-05:00

In this beguiling new gallery in the Engadin valley, it is hard to tell where nature ends and artifice begins. It is located on the site of a 12th-century monastery, in a rambling complex of buildings... The young architects Chasper Schmidlin and Lukas Voellmy have concocted a magical place where the historic fabric, contemporary art and the raw geology of the landscape collide.

Exterior. Photograph: (c) Studio Stefano Graziani, courtesy Muzeum Susch, Art Stations Foundation CH

Though the outside of this gallery in the remote Eastern section of Switzerland appears perfectly ordinary, stepping past its entrance reveals a world of difference.

Interior. Photograph: Studio Stefano Graziani/courtesy Muzeum Susch and Art Stations Foundation CH

Muzeum Susch, one of the newest galleries in Switzerland, has been receiving attention for its novel approach towards the conflation of natural rock formations and exhibition space. 68-year-old Grażyna Kulczyk conceived of the private museum after building her first in a former brewery in her hometown of Poznań, Poland.

Given the natural irregularity of the walls, the space will primarily exhibit floor sculptures, including those from Magdalena Abakanowicz, Sara Masüger and Adrián Villar Rojas.

ISIS Threatens Southern Tunisian Towns Including the Star Wars Set for Tatooine

2015-03-25T14:50:00-04:00

Tataouine, the town in Tunisia where George Lucas filmed parts of Star Wars, has become embroiled in the country’s unrest with Isis. The town’s simple domed structures became iconic after they were used for Luke Skywalker’s home planet of Tatooine, and die-hard fans often make pilgrimages to them. But the town has become increasingly unsafe, as it is a waypoint for Isis fighters travelling to and from training bases in Libya, 60 miles to the east.

The article doesn't note that the design of the set is based off the architecture of the adjacent Berber-speaking village of Matmata. Tourists are driven in old Land Rovers by guides across the sweeping dunes of the Northern Sahara to the more famous set, which isn't actually inhabited, but is named after the nearby city/region of Tataouine. I visited the site in 2011 – less as a Star Wars enthusiast and more as a student, then engaged in research on the revolution. At the time, the area was considered a bit dangerous but for slightly different reasons: borders in the Sahara are much more porous than they appear on a map, and armed militants from Libya had been sighted in the region. Now that those forces have pledged allegiance to ISIL, the permeability of Tunisia's borders becomes an even graver issue.

Matmata is a rather sleepy town containing incredibly beautiful and unique architecture. That being said, with the exception of the bar adapted for use in the first Star Wars, none o...

Cave Collector in Minnesota Hunts for Additions to His Empire

2013-08-26T12:10:00-04:00

Since the mid-1980s, Mr. Ackerman has been traveling to southeastern Minnesota from his home in the Twin Cities area to explore and acquire caves. He is the largest private cave owner in Minnesota and might be the largest in the country, but nobody is certain because not all of his caves have been fully explored to determine their extent.