Christ & Gantenbein unveiled its new wing in 2016 for the National Museum Zurich – an angular concrete edifice conceived by the Swiss architects as a robust and spacious "museum factory".
British photographer Rory Gardiner visited Zurich in early March to shoot the new wing Christ & Gantenbein designed for the National Museum Zurich, Switzerland's most frequently visited museum of cultural history.
The expansion to the National Museum Zurich, for which the opening celebration will take place in July 2016, complements the original museum building of 1898 designed by the architect Gustav Gull. The new wing is located on the side adjoining the Platzspitz Park. The old and new buildings are directly coupled to each other so as to form an architectural and urban ensemble. The historical and modern building elements successfully confront each other. The new building directly incorporates some of the context’s existing features into its architecture. The building’s layout accommodates the trees and paths of the historical park, and the characteristic roofscape of the old building sets the volumetric theme of the new structure. The expressive folds in the rooftops can be understood as a contemporary interpretation of Gull’s articulated Historicism. The new is thus inconceivable without the old, but is nonetheless unmistakably modern.
