#solothurn school

Within the rich Swiss postwar architectural history the Solothurn School, indelibly marked by the architects Fritz Haller, Franz Füeg, Max Schlup, Alfons Barth and Hans Zaugg, takes on a somewhat unusual role: rather than following the example of Le Corbusier and taking on a sculptural, brutalist idiom the architects leaned towards the glass and steel architecture of Mies van der Rohe. Among the five protagonists Max Schlup (1917-2013), based in the city of Biel, stands out as the most poetic yet daring architect whose major works include Miesian buildings like the Strandboden secondary school or the Mother-Child-Facility in Biel just as well as the Biel Congress Center with its large concrete surfaces and a scooped roof construction. The latter likely is a result of Schlup's excursion to Brasilia where he admired the immense construction activities and the spirited architecture of Oscar Niemeyer. In 2013 the Architekturforum Biel published the monograph "Max Schlup - Architekt/architecte" with Niggli, a beautifully designed homage to the city's most significant postwar architect. The book focuses on a selection of ten buildings, including the previously mentioned school and congress center, each of them presented in old and new photographs, plans and brief texts. This somewhat narrow focus is a bit disappointing since the work catalogue included in the back of the book counts about 100 projects. Accordingly the reader only receives a partial impression of Max Schlup's work that nonetheless manages to bring across the poetry and charme of his buildings that through extensive glazing frame the surroundings in a beautiful way. Beyond that four essays by Jürg Graser (THE expert on the Solothurn School), Martin Tschanz, Christian Penzel & Christoph Schläppi each discuss one building, shed light on their construction, materiality and try to uncover inspirational sources, a speculative dimension of Schlup's work that also a long interview with the architect cannot dissolve.