Instant and Eternity in metaphysical spheres

Jean Nouvel grew up in Fumel, Lot-et-Garonne to the west of Bordeaux – in a small historical town whose size, population and importance in protecting historic buildings have an uncanny amount in common with Morat. This might explain why the French architect and his Swiss partners, GIMM Gauer Itten Messerli Maria, chose this location and an extraordinary concept. They dispensed with the platform over the water, which the Expo anticipated, left the Expopark open and unfenced, included rather than excluded the old town of Morat, and did not indulge in primary architecture. Nouvel thereby shows the location the greatest respect. Nouvel’s leitmotiv is not the sanitized and conserved facet but the puzzling mystic spirit of the place: the landscape, the old town as jewel and the magic of the water. The concrete interventions are restricted to pavilions in the form of simple tents or provocatively laconic ship containers, which ideally suit the image of the place in terms of size but whose unromantic materialness staunchly rebuffs any connection with a romantic, pastoral idyll. The gigantic, rusty cube above the waters of the lake is the icon of the Arteplage. In Morat’s case the “genius loci” is particularly evident at the point where the theme Instant and Eternity turns the ancient town walls themselves into an exhibit. 

The Monolith and the archaic fires on the lake lift the magic of the landscape into the metaphysical realms of The Island of the Dead by the German-Roman, Arnold Böcklin. Nouvel’s additions and interpretations lend the genius loci a second and third level of interpretation, between siege and idealization, between temporary structures and excessively-preserved historical buildings. The transfiguration and the accentuation of the location’s special features transform the landscape and the old town of Morat into a large stage, but its individual highlights and surprising eye-catching objects do not upstage the total work of art. The crowds of visitors move freely and connect the hot and cold zones of Nouvel’s mystical dramaturgy.

Concept, architecture and design
AJN Ateliers Jean Nouvel, Paris, France www,jeannouvel.com
Jean Nouvel (responsible for the project)
Frédérique Monjanel (project manager)
Eric Maria (project manager)
Sébastien Abribat (architect of the project)
Nicolaï Baehr (architect of the project)
Anna Cavepayre (architect of the project)
Thomas Corbasson (architect of the project)
Jean-Louis Courtois (model)
Partner: GIMM Gauer Itten Messerli Maria (new: Gauer Itten Messerli Architekten AG) (Daniel Messerli), Bern www.gim.ch

_{Photos: © AJN Ateliers Jean Nouvel}