Kunsthalle Löwenbrauareal, Zurich. After a failed redevelopment of the Löwenbrau site, the industrial building was converted into a centre for contemporary art as part of the so-called cultural mile. The most important architectural intervention took place in the premises of the art gallery that moved into the second upper storey of the former bottling plant of the brewery. In principle the effort was made to exercise restraint in the compositional means in order to retain the industrial character of the hall and to create ideal conditions for the presentation of art. The most important premise of the architectural conception was a 60 m long and almost 6 m high glass façade structured in a series of iron supports. Five linearly placed exhibition spaces of different sizes were created which, aligned towards the façade, formed a rhythmical succession. These clearly proportioned rooms, each of which took on an specific atmosphere with their differentiated external conside-rations, are optimally lighted by the north-facing glass frontage. The connection to the outside world is mirrored in the most concentrated possible zones for the contemplation of art, whereby in the large exhibition space the window panes have been sand blasted to fade the external contact in favour of a greater internal unity. In 2001 Beatrix Ruf succeeded Mendes Bürgi as the new curator. She wanted to reposition the offices, which previously lay far from the entrance, at the front of the building and make the library available to the public. The art couple Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset declared the building process as their exhibition. The conversion, supervised by us, was stretched out over the two-month exhibition period. The demolition of walls, for instance, was deliberately staged, and certain building processes that would normally have been carried out in succession were executed parallel to one another.

"Anstelle einer Bautafel" Art by Urs Frei