Hans Zwimpfer

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Hans Zwimpfer (born December 23, 1930 in Entlebuch , Canton Lucerne ; † January 8, 2017 in Basel ) was a Swiss architect . He lived and worked in Basel. His most important buildings include the new building of the St. Gallen University and the Riffig Church in Emmenbrücke from the early days of his activity, and the Peter Merian House and the Jacob Burckhardt House in Basel from his later work.

Life

After completing an apprenticeship, Hans Zwimpfer worked as a structural draftsman at Hermann Baur Architekt in Basel, where he learned the craft of architecture. In 1957 he won the competition for the new building of the University of St. Gallen together with Walter Maria Förderer and Rolf Georg Otto and worked in the office group Förderer + Otto + Zwimpfer Architects until 1964. Together they realized several important buildings in exposed concrete - in addition to the St. Gallen University, the Brunnmatt School in Basel and the Realschule in Aesch .

In the 50 years that followed, Hans Zwimpfer worked with various partners, for a long time under the company name Zwimpfer Partner Architekten . Hans Zwimpfer's work is diverse and extensive: schools, churches, cultural and sports buildings, residential and commercial buildings, administrative buildings, hotels and shopping centers. Projects abroad are three hotels and a tourism center in Saudi Arabia and an urban development project for 50,000 residents in Guayaquil , Ecuador. Large-scale projects such as the Löwen-Center Lucerne, the Hotel Plaza in Basel, the Peter Merian Haus and the Jacob Burckhardt Haus in Basel were launched on the basis of their own initiative .

Since 2003, Hans Zwimpfer has been researching and developing with the company Zapco Ltd (ZAPCO stands for Zwimpfer Architects Planners Consultants) in the field of housing and urban planning . He developed residential typologies and thus realized various residential buildings throughout Switzerland. Hans Zwimpfer had the Pile Up and Stack Up residential typologies patented, which caused a stir in the world of architects.

Hans Zwimpfer had included art in his buildings since he began working as an architect . For example, on the Peter-Merian-Haus and Jacob-Burckhardt-Haus projects in Basel, we worked with a total of over 30 artists - Donald Judd , Beat Zoderer , Pipilotti Rist , Brigitte Kowanz , Renée Levi, Claude Lévèque, Markus Müller and many more. In the 1990s, Hans Zwimpfer replaced the term “ art in architecture ” with “art + architecture” and established it with the formula “1 + 1 = 3”. The integration of art and the dialogue with architecture create added value.

Publications

  • Protocol booklets for the “Art + Architecture” project in the Bahnhof Ost Basel. 6 booklets. Lars Müller publishing house, Baden 1998-2000, ISBN 3-907078-10-1 .
  • Peter Merian Haus Basel: At the interface of art, technology and architecture. Birkhäuser, Basel 2002, ISBN 3-7643-6621-4 .
  • My red thread: Peter Merian Haus and Jacob Burckhardt Haus 1986–2009. Zapco, Basel 2011, ISBN 978-3-03-303005-3 .

Works (selection)

  • 1963, University of St. Gallen , (with W. Förderer and R. Otto)
  • 1964, Neumattschulhaus, Aesch, (with W. Förderer and R. Otto)
  • 1964, Brunnmatt-Schulhaus, Basel, (with W. Förderer and R. Otto)
  • 1967, Riffig Church, Emmenbrücke
  • 1968, Hallwylerschulhaus, Brugg
  • 1969, residential high-rise Reinacherstrasse, Basel
  • 1969, export of prefabricated hotels and 200 lightweight villas to Saudi Arabia (Zapco Ltd)
  • 1978, Hotels in Saudi Arabia (Zapco Ltd)
  • 1980, urban planning projects , Guayaquil , Ecuador (Zapco Ltd)
  • 1984, Löwen-Center, Lucerne
  • 1998, Schlossberg residential and commercial building, Lucerne
  • 2000, Peter-Merian-Haus, Basel
  • 2000, residential property Wettstein, Basel
  • 2002, St. Jakob ice rink, Basel
  • 2009, Jacob Burckhardt Haus, Basel (with J. Steib)
  • 2006–2012, residential developments in Rheinfelden, Neuhausen am Rheinfall and Zug with the residential typologies Pile Up and Stack Up (Zapco Ltd)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Is architecture patentable? Neue Zürcher Zeitung, December 15, 2006.
personal data
SURNAME Zwimpfer, Hans
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss architect
DATE OF BIRTH December 23, 1930
PLACE OF BIRTH Entlebuch , Canton of Lucerne , Switzerland
DATE OF DEATH January 8, 2017
Place of death Basel