Musée des Beaux-Arts Lausanne

0007Musée des Beaux-Arts Lausanne

The planned poly­gonal museum, designed to resemble sculp­turally polished bed­rock, is set directly on Lake Geneva. The mono­lith, clad in white arti­fi­cial stone, sets a new accent with­in the sil­hou­ette of Lausanne’s lake­side city­scape. The museum is linked to the town via an ample ramp, which gath­ers visitors together from the indivi­dual entran­ces before distri­but­ing them through­out the various levels. The route of the ramp guides arrivals into the museum’s recep­tion area.

Moving counter-clock­wise on another ramp, visitors reach the ante­room of the two exhi­bi­tion levels, which is oriented toward the city. Two large, freely divis­ible, arti­fi­cially lit galleries are inter­locked spa­tially cross­wise via con­verse stair­cases, with two sky­light galleries set higher up. Again and again, these versa­tile spaces offer impres­sive pros­pects, until view­ers are over­whelmed by the pano­ramic view from the roof terrace.