MATTHIAS SAUERBRUCH about:

The house faces the street like every other building, on closer inspection, however, the facade turns out to have just nine windows, almost none of which looks like the others, unusual proportions, inexplicable shifts in scale; attentive observers start to get curious. And if they manage to get past the facade of urban anonymity, they will quickly realize that almost nothing about this building is normal, and nothing at all was left to chance. First, a small, Zen inspired interior courtyard takes up the Far Eastern influences and unfolds a kind of monastic atmosphere in the middle of the area that is obviously dedicated to Leiko Ikemura’s art. The subtle spatiality of the house goes hand in hand with a robust, solid materiality that one cannot perhaps avoid describing as Swiss. Moreover, the material is worked with so much love of detail and awareness of the dedication of future use that one is more likely to recall the unpretentious simplicity perhaps associated with traditional houses in the Swiss mountains. This house is a built microcosm, it units a horizontal workshop with a vertical thinking space, an introverted sleeping capsule and an open living deck; it offers retreat and vista; it combines delicate forms and proportions. It is like its residents: not simple, but loving and unpretentious – and full of surprises.