Bücher von Ludovic Balland

Lux Guyer (1894-1955) was the first female architect to establish her own studio in Switzerland in 1924. One of her key designs is the Obere Schiedhalde, a single-family home above Küsnacht near Zurich. Completed in 1929 and temporarily occupied by Guyer and her family themselves, it is a variation on her legendary SAFFA-Haus of 1928. Between 2012 and 2018, the building itself as well as the surrounding garden were extensively and carefully restored by Basel-based architecture firm Christ & Gantenbein together with Sven Richter, co-founder of Richter Tobler Architects in Basel. Working in close collaboration with the Canton of Zurich's office for the preservation of historic monuments, they also called in experts for a historically conscious overhaul of the building's interior design, color scheme, furniture, and garden design. Together with the current owners, the architects made it their mission to not only preserve this significant architectural monument of Swiss Modernism, but also make it accessible to the public through this book. Conceived by graphic designers Ludovic Balland and Annina Schepping, it offers an in-depth documentation of the renovated Obere Schiedhalde. Some 200 photographs of the house, garden, interior details, and furniture, as well as historic and newly drawn plans are supplemented with texts in German and English that tell the story of the building and the entire undertaking of its restoration.

Basel-based architects Daniel Buchner and Andreas Bründler established their studio in 1997 and soon gained wide recognition for their designs. Today, Buchner Bründler Architects ranks among the leading Swiss firms of the younger generation. This book, their second major monograph, features around fifteen completed projects from 2010 to 2020 in rich detail. The selection comprises new buildings as well as significant reconstructions, with a focus on housing designs of various size and type in Switzerland and Germany. This is supplemented by a heavily illustrated survey of another fifty buildings and unrealized projects. In total, this lavish volume features some 1,500 photographs, sketches, plans, and visualizations, most of them previously unpublished. Yet Buchner Bründler - Bauten II does not merely bring together images of individual buildings. Instead, it places them in a larger context with concise texts that explore as well historic, social, and economical aspects of the specific location. Moreover, the renowned Swiss book designer Ludovic Balland and his collaborator Annina Schepping have experimented with a range of photographic methods and techniques. Their artistic interpretations of Buchner Bründler's buildings complete a stunningly beautiful volume.

Duplex Architekten, gegründet 2007 in Zürich, haben sich einen exzellenten Ruf für ihre Bauten unterschiedlichen Massstabs und ihre grosse Bandbreite an Typologien erarbeitet. Seit 2011 betreiben sie neben dem Stammsitz auch die Ableger Studio Duplex in Düsseldorf und Hamburg, seit 2020 zudem das Büro Duplex Architectes in Paris. Mit dieser ersten Monografie zu ihrem Schaffen in Deutschland und der Schweiz erlauben Duplex Architekten einen unmittelbaren Einblick in ihre Arbeitsweise im Wohnungsbau. Fünf Projekte in der Schweiz, die reichhaltig mit Bildern, Plänen und Visualisierungen illustriert werden, veranschaulichen ihre Haltung zu Städtebau, Typologieforschung und Materialität und demonstrieren ihre höchst eigenständige Arbeitsweise. Der städtebauliche Massstab, die Findung neuer Wohnformen, die Bedeutung der Gemeinschaft und der kollaborative Entwurfsprozess stehen im Zentrum der Überlegungen von Duplex Architekten in diesem Tätigkeitsfeld. Nele Dechmanns Text und Ludovic Ballands Bildessay beleuchten die Arbeit von Duplex Architekten auf ihre je eigene Weise. Neben den beiden Gründungspartnern Anne Kaestle und Dan Schürch kommt zudem auch eine Reihe weiterer Beiträgerinnen und Beiträger zu Wort, die persönliche Blicke auf diese fünf Bauten werfen.