André M. Studer

St. Elisabeth, Catholic Church in Kilchberg , 1962–1967

St. Andreas, Catholic Church in Uster , model

André (Maria Albert) Studer (born December 9, 1926 in Versailles , † January 13, 2007 in Gockhausen ) was a Swiss architect and writer .

Career

André Studer grew up as the oldest of six children, initially in Versailles and from 1935 in Solothurn . At 15 he became a member of the local art association. From 1946 he studied architecture at the ETH Zurich , among others with the architectural historian Sigfried Giedion , through whose mediation he was able to complete an internship at Le Corbusier in Paris for several months in 1948 . Already during his studies he dealt with harmony and its application in architecture. In 1952 he met the American architect Frank Lloyd Wright in Zurich and from then on remained in friendly contact with him.

Studer found his first job at the renowned architecture firm Haefeli Moser Steiger in Zurich. Here he met his partner, the interior designer Theres Spoerry, with whom he had two daughters and three sons, born between 1954 and 1967. The couple traveled extensively to Mexico and the USA. In the USA, Studer made the acquaintance of Oscar Stonorov, an employee of German origin and later Corbusier's estate agent .

1954/1955 planning Studer on behalf of the senior town planner Michel Écochard with his fellow student Jean Hentsch in Casablanca / Morocco, which was still under French colonial administration at the time, the residential development "Habitat Marocain" for the Arab population. Like other architects, the settlement was planned as a response to the rampant “bidonvilles” (slums) based on the general development plan by Écochard. From these, the residents were mostly forcibly expelled, which led to uprisings that contributed to the declaration of independence in Morocco. Studer and Hentsch tried to combine western modern design (asymmetrically stacked and nested cubes in the Bauhaus style , with two-story patio balconies) and construction technology (reinforced concrete, cement stones) with regional building and living forms ( kasbahs , courtyard houses made of rammed earth and adobe bricks) . This did not succeed, however, because the western architecture ultimately did not meet the everyday needs and living habits of the locals, who, for example, soon closed up and raised the balconies and also changed the architecture significantly over the years.

After returning to Switzerland, Studer initially worked for Otto Glaus and from 1956 again for Haefeli Moser Steiger. During this time he was in loose contact with the architects Alvar Aalto , Walter Gropius and Richard Neutra . From 1959 he started his own business in Gockhausen in a newly built studio, a large all-roof house that was actually supposed to be part of a larger overall development and caused a stir in the architectural world of that time.

From 1976 onwards, through a doctor friend of his, for whom he was to build a clinic, Studer discovered esotericism , in particular the belief in commuting and the transmission of future messages through a medium . As a result of fewer and fewer architectural commissions, Studer and his partner founded a “Foundation for the Promotion of Global Consciousness”, called “G 19”, which organized spiritual lectures, seminars and workshops. Here they made friends with the medium Divaldo Franco , who is known in Brazil, and subsequently supported his aid organization for orphans " Mansão do Caminho " in Salvador da Bahia .

In the last years of his life, Studer was primarily active as a writer and also translated Portuguese literature. He died shortly after his 81st birthday. He was buried on February 1, 2007 in the area of ​​the Lassalle House he planned and built .

meaning

Studer was one of the most important Swiss architects in the second half of the 20th century. He designed post-war architecture in Switzerland “with individual ideas and original approaches” ( Neue Zürcher Zeitung ). He won prizes or acquisitions in numerous architectural competitions. No other skyscraper in the country has written as much and in detail in the trade press as about the zur Palme skyscraper in Zurich- Enge, for which he is jointly responsible : the parking spaces on the roof of the base building, the drive-in bank branch and the “Silberkugel” fast food bar made the palm a symbol of a new, American-influenced time in the 1960s.

Andre Studer has built a large number of individual houses, villas, but also row and terrace houses. His terrace house Abgottspon in Visp was published as one of the first hillside settlements in Switzerland in the trade journal Werk .

Above all, Studer made a name for himself as a church architect. His church rooms, which were realized in Uster and Kilchberg , are vaulted on a square floor plan - using harmonious principles - with organic, column -free, hyperbolic concrete roofs. Studer mostly used building materials made from natural materials such as concrete , brickwork and wood.

His work is characterized by a "harmonious construction", strongly influenced by the harmonist Hans Kayser , with whom and whose circle of friends he was known. Studer tried to grasp mathematical similarities between architecture, music, religion and also astrology and to classify them in a comprehensive overall system. For him, music, which can be expressed in numbers, possessed a further quality that appealed to emotions as sound. Every number (which predominantly stands for the material, quantitative component) is therefore a carrier of a tone value (which predominantly stands for the spiritual, qualitative component). Both components combine to form the so-called tone number, in which the two world components correspond perfectly. Studer was of the opinion that all of his buildings, everything in nature in general, had a certain relationship to one another. With the help of the musical instrument monochord , architecture can be converted into tones, and each building can be assigned its own melody. The basic dimension of Studer's buildings is the human length measurement “ foot ”, which has been used in architecture for thousands of years , corresponding to around 30 cm. From this the mass of his buildings are derived as multiples or fractions, namely in certain proportions, which he determined by producing a harmonic melody on the monochord.

Important buildings

• Habitat Marocain , housing estate in Sidi Othman , Casablanca / Morocco, 1953–1955 (with Jean Hentsch)
• Studer studio house , Gockhausen, 1964
• St. Andreas , Catholic Church in Uster , 1961–1967
• Harbeck House , Fällanden, 1961–1964
• Trümpler House , Stäfa, 1961–1965
• Primary school , Bergdietikon, 1961–1967
• St. Elisabeth , Catholic Church in Kilchberg , 1964–1967
• Studer House , Merlischachen, 1963–1965
• Terrace house , Visp, 1964–1967
• Kundert House , Feldbach, 1965–1967
• Religious educational center Bad Schönbrunn (today Lassalle -Haus) in Edlibach , 1968–1970
• Eggler House , Schindellegi, 1967–1970
• Signer House , Hombrechtikon, 1974–1976
• Wyss house , double dwelling, Wädenswil, 1975–1977
• Friedhof , Dübendorf, 1978–1980
• Village center , Hombrechtikon, 1976–1991 (executed by E. Eigenmann)
• House Abt , Hombrechtikon, 1978–1979
• Schuler House , Feusisberg, 1978–1980
• Büchel House , Mels, 1980–1981
• Muggli House , Stäfa, 1980–1981
• House Moser and Wiedemann , double house, Uitikon, 1980–1982
• Höfer House , Büsingen, 1981
• Gemeindestrasse , apartment building, Zurich, 1981–1984
• Böhler House , Uerikon, 1981–1984, (executed by E. Eigenmann)

In cooperation :

• Zur Palme high-rise commercial building in Zurich, 1959–1964, with Haefeli, Moser, Steiger

Publications

• In the beginning was the sound
• Architecture, people, dimensions
• Spiritual design principles
• Criteria of an integral architecture
• Hear the song of the universe in you!

supporting documents

1. ^ AS (= André Studer): Housing projects for Arab settlements in Casablanca, Morocco . In: The work . tape 43 , no. 1 . Werk Verlag, Zurich January 1, 1956, doi : 10.5169 / seals-33251 .
2. ^ André Studer: Atelier in Gockhausen . In: The work . tape 47 , no. 5 . Werk Verlag, Zurich May 1, 1960, doi : 10.5169 / seals-36746 .
3. ↑ André Studer: House Zurbriggen-Abgottspon Visp VS . In: The work . tape 55 , no. 10 . Werk Verlag, Zurich October 1, 1968, doi : 10.5169 / seals-42970 .

Web links

• Literature by and about André M. Studer in the catalog of the German National Library
• Vanessa Giannò: André M. Studer. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .