Dorenbach AG
Maison Mosch
Description
Set at the foot of Mount Gempen and positioned between two extremely different buildings – House Vreede (1920), attributed to Rudolf Steiner, and the sharp white contours of Maison Cube, currently being built to the plans of the Basel architects Dorenbach AG – this house attempts to strike a balance between the organically sculptural and classical Modernist poles represented by the neighbouring structures in order to form an ensemble. Typologies of both poles are taken up here, with strict orthogonals on the side towards Maison Cube and soft, voluptuous curves towards House Vreede. These two utterly divergent design strategies intermingle on the outside, only to then merge in the interior: open/closed, narrow/spacious, light/dark, soft/hard. Incredible: the way the light breaks through the hard shell – from the north and south through wide openings, from the west and east through narrower apertures, and from above through a light canon – to play across the interior walls and connect outdoors and indoors inseparably with the weather, time of day and season.