Couvent des Capucins (Sion)

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The monastery from the south
Chapel wreath on the old monastery church

The Couvent des Capucins (French: Capuchin Monastery ) in Sion is a former monastery that was converted into a nursing home in 1990. The architect of the new building from 1961 to 1968 was Mirco Ravanne , Milan, the renovation was carried out by Baechler + Gagliardi, Sion.

Building description

The original structure of the Capuchin monastery came from the Baroque era, built between 1631 and 1643; after 1920 the choir was enlarged and in 1930 Alphonse de Kalbermatten extended the south wing and added a third floor. In 1948 the couvent caused a sensation when the church had to be renovated after an earthquake and was repainted by the Italian futurist Gino Severini ; the then controversial altarpiece depicts the stigmatization of Francis .

The renovation of the 1960s, the masterpiece by Ravanne, who had spent 15 years in Valais, placed its delineated, L-shaped structure precisely on the foundation walls of the old abbey. Otherwise, Ravanne abandoned the approach of preserving the character of the original baroque building as much as possible, but decided, with the support of Guardian Pere Damien, to look for a contemporary solution. He initially took the monastery - in its state before 1930 - as the raw material, as the starting point for his considerations. To do this, he knocked off the plaster and exposed the old quarry stone masonry, a symbol of the Franciscan ideal of poverty, but at the same time also a point of reference and contrast to the new one to be added, which mainly consists of exposed concrete, glass, metal, wood. This new thing now follows two systems that have been superimposed on the existing; an orthogonal grid, which above all gives order to the two newly built east and south wings that close the cloister, and a structural folded structure that structures the ceiling structures, side chapels, passeroles of the cloister and, above all, the end of the choir. The result was a modular system that sits on top of the remains of the old and, as it were, crowns them in a filigree manner. The modular basic grid was derived from the double cell arranged in pairs, the elevation followed the Brise-Soleil , which only allow partial views of the landscape, like a blink.

The building was described as standing out from contemporary architecture in the Valais, but was hardly discussed by experts. Stanislaus von Moos was amazed a decade later: “How was it possible that this building, which is far above the level of the best Swiss 'quality architecture' of the past decade, apart from a brief flare-up of journalistic curiosity in view of the non-conformist Valais Capuchins, was ignored by the professional world of the country (not excluding the architecture magazines) over the years? ", while Marie-Claude Morand called the monastery again five years later as an" admirable lesson for times to come "and" ... one of the rare successful interventions on the existing " described. She suspected that the specifically Italian experience of the architect, who came from Venice and worked in Milan, had made the rapid growth of the metropolises of Milan, Turin and Rome much more important than in Switzerland than in Switzerland, so that here a « radically new element »has been introduced into the Swiss architecture scene.

The exhibition, which was developed in 1998 by the universities of French-speaking Switzerland via Mirco Ravanne and shown in Lausanne, Geneva, Biel, Sion and Zurich, dealt with the Couvent des Capucins on a broad basis.

literature

  • Stanislaus von Moos : Integration as the Perfection of Modernity: For the Extension of the Capuchin Monastery in Sion . In: Werk - Archithese . tape 66 , no. 25-26 . Niggli, 1979, p. 20th ff ., doi : 10.5169 / seals-50754 .
  • Wolfgang Jean Stock (Ed.): European Church Building, 1950-2000 . Munich: Prestel, 2002. ISBN 3-7913-2744-5
  • Angelica Diamantis: Mirco Ravanne, architect-designer . Lausanne: Presses Polytechniques et Universitaires Romandes, 1998. ISBN 2-88074-381-8
  • Christa Zeller: Swiss architecture guide; Volume 3: Western Switzerland, Valais, Ticino. Zurich: Werk Verlag 1996. ISBN 3-909145-13-2 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Catherine Raemy-Berthod: Sion, Chapter 3: Inventaire topographique . In: Inventory of modern Swiss architecture, 1850-1920 . tape 9 . Orell-Füssli, Zurich 2003, ISBN 3-280-05069-3 , p. 84 , doi : 10.5169 / seals-10094 .
  2. ↑ The description follows and paraphrases throughout the entire section Stanislaus von Moos : Integration as the Perfection of Modernity: On the Expansion of the Capuchin Monastery in Sion . In: Werk - Archithese . tape 66 , no. 25-26 . Niggli, 1979, p. 22-24 , doi : 10.5169 / seals-50754 .
  3. ^ In the introduction to the essay Stanislaus von Moos : Integration as Perfection of Modernity: On the Extension of the Capuchin Monastery in Sion . In: Werk - Archithese . tape 66 , no. 25-26 . Niggli, 1979, p. 20 , doi : 10.5169 / seals-50754 .
  4. ^ Marie-Claude Morand: Architectures contemporaines en Valais: 1960-1980 . In: Ingénieurs et architectes suisses . tape 110 , no. 26 . SEATU, 1979, p. 449 , doi : 10.5169 / seals-75367 .

Coordinates: 46 ° 14 '15.4 "  N , 7 ° 21' 31.8"  E ; CH1903:  five hundred and ninety-three thousand eight hundred and forty-four  /  one hundred and twenty thousand six hundred ninety