Architecture

Swiss concrete construction is the best in the world and Christ & Gantenbein is one of the top Swiss studios designing with the powerful material. Its 2016 extension to the Swiss national museum – an 1898 structure inspired by the historicist frippery of chateaux – is a starkly beautiful addition. Cheeky nods to the original structure abound in the angular extension, where vaulting and Corinthian columns are cast in pale concrete. The museum houses some of the most important cultural objects of Swiss national identity from before the Middle Ages through to the present day.

If you find postwar architecture dreary and forbidding then you would do well to visit the Kantonsschulen Freudenberg, the masterpiece of the Swiss architect Jacques Schader. Built between 1954 and 1961, the complex is made up of concrete-framed cuboids that sprawl over a slope. The geometric forms are concealed at various levels and every room has large-scale windows on two or more sides that look out over tree-speckled lawns. 

Since 1987 the Kantonsschulen Freudenberg has been listed as a national monument and it was once dubbed “Zürich’s Acropolis” by the Swiss newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung . Home to two schools, it’s usually closed to the public but it’s open for tours during the city’s annual Open House weekend.