The renowned architect Bjarke Engels and his firm, BIG, have unveiled the Musee Atelier Audemars Piguet, located in the town of Le Brassus, Switzerland, the historic home of Swiss watchmaking. Nestled in the mountainous Vallée de Joux landscape, the new spiraling structure is a museum, workshop and archive for the luxury watch brand.
It all sits under a set of spirals that also become a walking path atop the structure. Inside, glass walls separate all of the different rooms, allowing visitors inside to peek into the watch workshop and view the craftsmen at work.
The spiraling design seems to be a clear play on the main spring of a mechanical watch’s movement, the component that is wound and houses all of the timepiece’s energy.
The museum-workshop will officially open to the public in June of this year, when visitors will be invited in to move through its 25,800 square feet of exhibition and workshop space. Ingels explained the inspiration of the design to Architectural Digest:
“In watchmaking, a lot of the disciplines are what you could call getting the maximum amount of impact with a minimum amount of material. The idea is similar to this structure, and how the glass carries the entire roof over our heads….The museum is almost like an open work. Nothing is hidden, all the elements that you see are performing and part of the narrative, gently curving concentric circles.”
Next door, BIG has also designed a hotel for the horology obssessed. Under construction, the Hôtel des Horlogers will open in 2021. Similar to the new museum, the rooftop of the hotel is also design for practical use, featuring a zig-zagging ramp that can be skipped down by guests.
Both projects are the types ambitious architectural and creative works one would expect from a historical important and audacious brand like Audemars Piguet.
For the full article and photos from Architectural Digest, click here.