Jean Pythoud

Jean Pythoud (born February 24, 1925 in Neirivue ) is a Swiss architect whose work focuses on Freiburg in the Üechtland . As an architect for various building cooperatives, he dealt intensively with “building for the minimum”, which relates to the question of how one can achieve as much as possible with minimal resources.

Live and act

After attending secondary school in Bulle , Pythoud completed an apprenticeship as a draftsman in 1942 with the Basel architect Arnold Gfeller , with whom he remained employed until 1947. During the following two years he was with Georges Épitaux (1873–1957) in Lausanne and from 1949 to 1951 with Chillier in Châtel-Saint-Denis . This was followed by the Delorme offices in Vevey in 1952, office manager at Fernand Dumas until 1956 and then collaboration with the Swiss engineer and architect of many swimming pools, Beda Hefti .

In 1959, when he was commissioned by the La Solidarité housing association , Pythoud was able to set up his own business and opened his office in Freiburg. This design - it concerns three buildings with forty apartments each, which were completed in 1963 - tried to represent the qualities of a single-family house in combination with the large form. The split-level apartments are connected with a rather complicated development, Pythoud used the possibilities of typification and prefabrication, formal aspects of the architecture take a back seat, while according to the maxim of modernity the form has to follow the function: the facades, which as Prefabricated elements including inserted windows were hung in front of the shell structure are predetermined by the interior space and its lighting, decor and composition are negated.

Pythoud teamed up with other architects several times, the longest from 1962 to 1978 with Roger Currat and Thomas Huber to form the Architectes Associés Friborg (AAF). The office continued the approach of the greatest simplicity and economy of resources with formal complexity and differentiated floor plans with its other residential construction projects, for example with Sicoop Schönberg : two nine-storey residential buildings, planned from 1961, where two symmetrical components each with duplex apartments and inner arcade access to the Stairway are attached. Both La Solidarité and Sicoop Schönberg are now listed as cultural monuments of cantonal status.

In addition to other residential buildings, Pythoud and AAF built a number of buildings primarily for the public sector, including schools in Freiburg, Grolley and Belfaux .

From 1970 to 1971 Jean Pythoud was president of the oeuvre, the Welsh sister organization of the Swiss Werkbund . From 1974 he was General Councilor of the Social Democratic Party in the Freiburg city parliament for twelve years . Pythoud has been married to Magui Liaudat since 1951 and the couple have three children.

Works (selection)

• La Solidarité , 3 apartment blocks, Freiburg 1959–1963
• Baticoop settlement , 12 private homes, Courtepin 1960–1962
• Hilber House , conversion of an old town house, Freiburg 1961
• Sicoop Schönberg , 2 apartment blocks, Freiburg 1967–1972
• Scientific institutes of the university , Freiburg 1964–1968, with Franz Füeg
• Préventorium pour enfants , Children's Health Center, Les Sciernes d'Albeuves 1964–1966
• Léchelles house , for Fernand Monney, Freiburg 1963
• Benetti House , Romont 1965–1966
• Notre Dame du Jolimont , School, Freiburg 1965–1967, 1972–1973
• H. Schmidt AG , warehouse, workshop and apartment, St. Ursen 1968
• Motorway administration , Givisiez 1968–1969
• Primary School , Grolley 1971–1973
• Primary school , Belfaux 1971–1972
• The architect's house , Freiburg 1971
• Cerniat monastery church , renovation and reconstruction in 1971
• École de la Vignettaz , primary school, Freiburg 1975–1976
• House Camille Meyer , Belfaux 1978
• Irène Ruffieux House , Arconciel 1982
• Ferme Michel Ray , conversion of a farmhouse, Chavannes-sur-Orsonnes 1985

literature

• Christoph Allenspach, Gilles Barbey, Alberto Sartoris, Walter Tschopp: Simple in the means. The architect Jean Pythoud. Méandre, Freiburg im Üechtland 1995, ISBN 2-88359-010-9 .
• Christoph Allenspach: Pythoud, Jean . In: Isabelle Rucki and Dorothee Huber (eds.): Architectural Lexicon of Switzerland - 19./20. Century. Birkhäuser, Basel 1998, ISBN 3-7643-5261-2 , p. 427.