Switzerland’s Expo’02 centres on the environment of the
region of the Three Lakes, in the north-west tip of Switzerland
that coincides with the boundaries of France and Germany. At Murten-Morat,
Jean Nouvel was commissioned to design all the actual pavilions.
Nouvel confronts the centuries-long calm of this community, at a
town once famous as the site of the key battle won by the Swiss
against the Hapsburgs, a kind of Swiss battle of Hastings, but victory
not defeat. The Swiss organisers have selected major international
names, such as Diller + Scorfidio (New York) and Coop Himmellau
from Vienna. French architect Nouvel’s own ‘Monolith’
of steel floats enigmatically on Lake Morat. But where are talented
Swiss architects such as Peter Zumthor or Tate Gallery architects
Herzog and de Meuron, or Gigon and Guyer, fresh from the success
of the Historical Park at Kalkriese in Germany? The cost of the
Expo was 600 million. This may be the last great international
exhibition of its kind. There are no free lunches, of course, and
one wonders at the real agenda here. Swiss architects should have
got in with a slice of the action. The exhibition closes on 20 October.
