Edifici per la comunità

Each with their own language, with their own sensibilities, the architects whose works are examined in this survey of community buildings, on different scales, have set out in our view to do what Aurelio Galfetti, Flora Ruchat-Roncati and Ivo Trümpy have done in the project for the public swim facility of Bellinzona (1967– 70). The starting point for all is to give back to the territory what has been received from it, giving rise to a place that can augment the physical, psychological, economic and social wellbeing of its users. The design opportunity is seen in terms of civil responsibility and a functional program enriched as much as possible by content, to make the experience of architecture intense and part of an overall design of change. Finally, there is a basic clarity that makes it possible to implement a few project choices, relying on their expressive quality and therefore also simple to grasp for those who have a direct experience of the architecture. The materials –few in number and selected with care– enable the observer to avoid getting distracted and to get to the heart of the design choices.

The survey of four Swiss contemporary community facilities begins with the most urban of the group and gradually shifts towards projects in small towns or the countryside.

The project by the firm Bakker & Blanc for the Les Garages complex in the Flon district of Lausanne addresses a long, narrow lot below an sloping street in an area once inhabited by small industrial activities, which became a counter-cultural gathering place in the 1970s. In keeping with local building regulations, the new structure with a length of 115 meters has to match the level of the upper street, so it adapts to its slope like a sort of staircase, allowing the individual units to grow in height as the street rises. The building also incorporates the vertical connection that allows pedestrians to reach the upper street. The complex contains 21 units of different sizes, for ateliers, galleries and shops. The studio BABL, in the design of this long urban wing, takes on a more difficult objective, namely the creation of a new collective context, a mixture of trade, art and culture that bears the signs of the identity of the place and its history. The infill panels of the facades in oak and glass, and the covering of the doors in titanium zinc, narrate something about the typical materials used in the original constructions from the early 20th century in the Flon district, in vivid contrast with recent adjacent projects that present themselves without any relation to the con- text. This particular focus on materials is joined by a rugged, repetitive character, which once again is capable of communi- cating the essence of the site and its industrial heritage.

Artistic dimension and local culture are the features of another urban project at Saint-Maurice, a town at the narrowing point of the Rhône River, in the passage between Canton Valais and Canton Vaud, which takes its name from the large Abbey of Saint-Maurice d’Agaune. The project by the local studio of Götz Menzel and Catherine Gay involved the restoration and partial refurbishing of the Maisons Duc, three buildings from the 1600s partially facing the Grand-Rue, the main street of the town, listed as a site of historical importance. The project develops a delicate balance between permanence, protection, historical reconstruction and contemporary abstraction, bearing witness to in-depth research and maniacal conservation of elements felt to be of importance for the identity of places. Therefore many original doors have been conserved, restored and repositioned, papiers peints have been studied to reproduce their motifs in a contemporary way, original casements have been reinserted alongside other completely new ones, while surface coats in concrete bear the imprint of the old paneling. The same design attitude continues on an urban scale: the part of the lot not facing the main street, which was more badly damaged, also in structural terms, has been completely demolished and recon- structed in concrete with a high access portal that faces the plaza of the Abbey, and leads to the Oblique art gallery on the ground floor. The spaces of the gallery show signs of time, the walls have been partially left bare, without plaster, and the fair-face concrete takes on a prevailing, sculptural role, visually reprising the rhythm of the baseboards and the paneling of a wall clad in wood. The upper levels contain residences, accessed from an open courtyard, and ateliers for artists with disabilities, connected with the local FOVAHM (Fondation valaisanne en faveur des personnes handicapées mentales), which has worked with art for some time to create psychological wellbeing and social inclusion.

The project by the studio Baserga Mozzetti also has great social value, while at the same time it is solidly anchored to its territory of reference and to existing architectural presences: it is an institute for troubled youth, Jugendheim Mattini, in Brig, Canton Valais. The project recycles the Mattini chatelet, a structure from the 1700s at the entrance of the historic route leading to the Simplon Pass, behind the village of Brig. Apart from its strategic position, the building had an agricultural purpose, as indicated by the adjacent stall. The landscape context is marked by the architectural and spatial tension between the two buildings, by the enclosure with traditional dry stone walls, an old orchard on the opposite side of the stall and the view of the Alps. The project was made possible by a donation from the munici- pality, with the stipulation of reutilization for social benefit, and important funding on the part of the Canton (for conservation of existing buildings) and the Swiss Confederation (for social reinsertion of troubled youth). The set of three buildings, in perfect balance, called for different modes of design, intervention and functions. The stall, organized in two parts with a passage at the center, has been reformulated on the inside with teaching spaces, maintaining the original subdivi- sions and rhythms. The chatelet, which contains administration offices, has been conserved with its fragmentary characteris- tics, of stone and wood, between austerity and domestic atmosphere, in tune with its complex chronological background. The new building is an oblong volume that connects to the typology applied for the stalls, in which the rooms for the young guests are a reinterpretation of monastic cells, in antithesis with the continuity of the community spaces.

The Jugendheim Mattini seeks a virtuous combination of an empathic pedagogical approach and the regenerat- ing potential of the alpine landscape, close to the community yet sufficiently separat- ed to offer “another world” in which the young people can again find their way, engaging in social interaction through positive and stimulating practices, including contemplation of the landscape and agriculture.

A not so different communitarian vocation –based on restoration of existing buildings of interest with the insertion of new service volumes for social benefit– has to do with the center of the village of Cressier, in Canton Fribourg, in the Swiss countryside. Thanks to the project, the four existing buildings, of clearly rural character, and the three news ones contain about 20 lodgings –some for people with reduced mobility– as well as a funeral chapel, a heating plant and a community services zone. The studio LVPH, no strangers to projects in rural areas, have managed to balance the renovation of the characteristic buildings of the town with the introduction of new ones, lower with respect to the monumental fermes, to increase the density of the settlement without diminishing its domestic tone, the sense of welcome and protection generat- ed central square with its stone fountain. The large farm, small farm, former school and pigsty are the existing buildings addressed by the project, divided into apartments with independent entrances from the outside. Three new volumes respectively contain residences, a party room with the heating plant that serves the new portion, on the basement level, and the funeral chapel which has a peripheral position with respect to the complex. The firm LVPH has conserved the most salient characteristics of the existing buildings, the large lowered roofs that almost touch, the wooden structure supporting the roofs and their ceramic materials. They have also refurbished, where necessary, the pavement of stones that joins the various volumes, while using polished concrete as an ideal component to set the tone of the new interventions, without creating chromatic breaks with what already existed, though vibrant material effects have been achieved.

The designers of the four projects for community facilities surveyed here all share in an approach of careful research on the existing contexts, ranging from urban analysis to in-depth investigations, in teamwork with restoration experts and historians regarding construction techniques, decorations and materials. Knowledge of history and the identity of places is firmly interwoven with awareness of the role of contemporary architecture as an effective tool of social redemption, of appropriation of identity and, more generally, of personal balance for users.