The Zurich Kunsthaus

The Zurich Kunsthaus has always been a favorite of mine.  The intimate classical style of the buildings reminds me of the good old Chicago Art Institute of the 1960s and 1970s, where I spent a good deal of time in my formative years.



This style works perfectly for 'modern' art - that stuff that is now about 100 years old :-). Since then, however, art has become a much bigger business, and, in particular, there is a trend in 'contemporary' art towards ever-bigger 'installation' pieces that don't fit so well into those kind of spaces.  Ditto for the 'blockbuster' traveling shows that every major museum is now obligated to show.

One can certainly decry these trends, but that certainly won't make them go away. So, the Kunsthaus is now poised (pending an upcoming spending referendum) to go down the road of so many museums and build a huge (by Swiss standards) expansion building that will allow.  Fortunately, the design does not impinge directly on the existing buildings other than allow for a creative rearrangement of the collections.  It will certainly provide a lot more room and state-of-the-art facilities for what is the pre-eminent art institution in a very art-conscious town. You can read more about it here.



With all this in mind, today we went to the Kunsthaus to see for ourselves the plans and dreams associated with the new expansion building.  As part of its drive to get the upcoming referendum passes, the Kunsthaus itself has created a rather extensive exhibit (within the existing visit) that tries to help you visualize what the 'user experience' will be in the new building.  To make this more impressive, the Kunsthaus has included some of its existing iconic pieces, and also borrowed a number of additional 'blockbuster' pieces from other Swiss art museums and private collectors.  This certainly made for a pleasant afternoon.

Afterwards, we headed off to Zurich's (relatively) new Markthalle in the new 'Viadukt' shopping area.  This development cleverly turns an old railway viaduct into a giant shopping mall, attractively framing the various shops under the viaduct arches.





We went to the Markthalle again primarily to meet up with our friend Christian and his girlfriend Ozlem.  We know Christian from our last visit to Zurich, when we stayed for two months in an apartment in the University area.  Christian lived upstairs and befriended us.  Since then, he has had some bad breaks, including falling down a flight of stairs, which resulted in his being seriously laid-up with injuries for six months or so.  He's recovering pretty well now, and his new relationship with Ozlem, now about 6 months old, seems to be doing him a world of good.  No wonder - Ozlem is a charming and very intelligent young lady with a doctorate in architecture. We enjoyed seeing them - and meeting her - a lot.