29.04. - 29.07.2012

Constructing Community. The First Goetheanum in Photos and Documents

The exhibition begins with a photograph of the ruins after the fire in 1922 and ends with the design sketches of the project that had been initially conceived beginning in 1911–and then ultimately failed—in Munich and afterwards in 1913 was transferred to Dornach. No longer planned at the centre of the city but rather at the edge of a village there was a change in gestalt. The exhibition intentionally presents the chronology in reverse: a building that no longer exists is portrayed at the beginning; one, that doesn’t exist yet at the end. Travelling backwards everything has its ‘right’ place in the succession: first the plans, then the workers, followed by the mediatisation through photography, the building process and finally the end of the building.

Upcoming exhibitions

19.09.2026 - 03.01.2027

Tony Fretton: Practice

Opening: 18/9/2026, 7 PM

The S AM Swiss Architecture Museum is proud to announce PRACTICE, a retrospective exhibition of selected projects of architect Tony Fretton (b. 1945, London). He established Tony Fretton Architects in London in 1984, which ran until 2024. His published texts on architecture are numerous, and he has taught extensively, including as Chair of Interiors Buildings and Cities at the Faculty of Architecture at TU Delft, and as guest professor at GSD Harvard, ETH Zurich and EPFL Lausanne. He lives and works in London.

Fretton’s buildings and projects are presented at S AM through texts, photographs and drawings. Together, they show Fretton’s practice as continuity of reflection on the existing environment, including the social, cultural and political dimensions of the city and what lies outside it.