LOCALARCHITECTURE: Rudolf Steiner School of Geneva - best architects 20

LOCALARCHITECTURE

Rudolf Steiner School of Geneva

best architects 20

education buildings

Place

Geneva, Switzerland

Photos

Matthieu Gafsou

Description

PROJECT

At the beginning of the concept for the extension of the school, is the school itself. The buildings, designed and built by the architect Jean-Jacques Tschumi in the late 1980s, are characterised by their organic forms that enclose a cour­tyard.

 

INTERIORS & EXTERIORS

The interiority of this uncovered courtyard is a prelude to the «exteriority» of the educational spaces, turned towards the landscape and oriented along the movement of the sun. The construction pays homage to Rudolf Steiner’s lecture «True aesthetic laws of form».

 

PAST & FUTURE

The current project proposes a continuation of this approach, respec­ting the spirit of the site and the school, seeking to discover the essence of the initial plan, offering a contemporary reading and intensifying the construction principle, thanks in par­ticular to 3D tools. The organic work developed by Tschumi thus takes on a new and sublimated form. By arranging the new spaces on the roof, the system is prolonged and completes the «crowning» of the building by activating the link between the place and the sky. Originally planned to support one more floor, the existing concrete structure carries the new frame.

 

EMOTIONS

Each building element manifests itself formally and inde­pendently. It offers its users – students and teachers – a rich and varied range of emotions. The relationship thus establi­shed between the different components does not lead to a unitary, rigid body but pushes the assembly towards an elementary emotional orga­nicity.