Tuuli Kanerva Max Bill Museum and Archive

The museum for the work of the Swiss artist and architect Max Bill aims at a context specific, unexportable solution. The site is unusual for a museum: adjacent to the plot of the former atelier house of Bill, the museum sits in the semi-rural-semi-industrial context of Zumikon, a suburb near Zurich. The composition of the administration wing and the museum volume creates an entrance situation with a semi-closed entrance yard, a clear ending to the fragmented area of municipality infrastructure and a beginning for the lush green woods beginning South of the site. The museum extends through a narrow clearing in the forest, between a beautiful river and a road. Connection to the Haus Bill on the other side of the river is a visual one, through the forest, and it is experienced through a landscape gallery, a belvedere corridor running along the long side of the museum . The cantilevering gallery functions as a circulation space that connects the museum spaces of the permanent exhibition into one flowing museum experience. Neutral and top lit spaces for the temporary exhibition are placed on top of the more specific permanent collection spaces. The main exhibition spaces are placed on the northern side of the house to create a dim atmosphere, and the walls are covered with dark fabric to create a specific background for the richly coloured paintings of Max Bill. Since most of the artist’s works are small by size, a decision was made to downscale the exhibition into an intimate sequence of rooms, rather than larger halls.