01.11. - 17.11.2016

Imagine la Suisse

Vernissage: 01.11.2016
6 p.m.

In autumn 2016, S AM closes its doors for conversion work. However, instead of just being closed during this period, it is coming out onto the street. The windows facing Steinenberg shall become projection screens, on which the architects and curators Mateja Vehovar and Stefan Jauslin are to present their interpretation of Swiss architecture in a video installation.

For the ‹Imagine La Suisse› film collage the S AM appealed for people throughout Switzerland to send in photos and videos of built-up sites with which they have a personal connection. These submissions gave rise to a pool of images ranging from individual buildings and everyday architecture to infrastructural features and spatial situations and on to landscape architecture, comprising both contemporary and traditional architectural forms. These diverse subjective perceptions have been woven into an atmospherically-dense portrait of Switzerland by Vehovar and Jauslin. In this the pictures shift constantly between familiar architectural icons and less specific spatial moments, contemplative pictures overlap dynamic representations.

This installation heralds the new programme of the S AM Swiss Architecture Museum under the leadership of Director Andreas Ruby. 

 

Upcoming exhibitions

05.04. - 14.09.2025

What Was Could Be: Experiments Between Preservation and Architecture

An Exhibition by the  S AM Swiss Architecture Museum in Cooperation with the Chair of Construction Heritage and Preservation (Prof. Dr. Silke Langenberg), ETH Zurich.


Preservation is progressive: In current efforts to shift towards more sustainable building practices (known in German as the Bauwende, or ‘building turnaround’), preservation and maintenance of the existing building stock play a central role. The alteration or conversion of an existing building is considerably more resource-efficient than a comparable new build. This is leading to changes in the nature of architecture itself: where the focus used to be on new construction, building upon the built is increasingly considered the future of the discipline.

27.09. - 09.11.2025

SAY Swiss Architecture Yearbook

What defines Swiss architecture? The exhibition focuses on current construction and renovation projects with the aim of raising awareness about Swiss building culture and increase its visibility.
Curated by the S AM Swiss Architecture Museum and the magazine werk, bauen+wohnen.

29.11.2025 - 19.04.2026

Housing for Housing: The cooperative as a laboratory for coexistence

The exhibition presents cooperative housing regionally, nationally and internationally as a laboratory of non-profit-oriented cohabitation from which the entire city can benefit.