Musée Atelier Audemars Piguet

LE BRASSUS, SWITZERLAND

2020

CLIENT

Audemars Piguet

TYPOLOGY

Culture, Interiors

SIZE M2/FT2

2,373 / 25,543

STATUS

COMPLETED

Musée Atelier Audemars Piguet is a spiral-shaped pavilion, reminiscent of the spring in a timepiece movement, entirely supported by curved glass walls. The contemporary spiral flanks the original workshop where the Audemars Piguet story began in 1875 and where an earlier version of the museum was housed from 1992 to 2019. The vernacular architecture of the historical building has been fully recovered based on a thorough study of archival materials.

With a design that marries tradition and innovation, the Musée Atelier Audemars Piguet offers visitors a unique opportunity to delve into the history of watchmaking in the Vallée de Joux and explore how the brand’s timepieces are crafted in Le Brassus.

LINEAR PROGRAM — Returning to the space's program BIG took the linear sequence of exhibition spaces, and organized it as a single trajectory. To fit the long string of spaces onto the compact site, BIG coiled it up into a double spiral. That motion becomes the flow of the exhibition.

Exhibition Sequence — The existing museum building with its original workshops is connected to the exhibition sequence through an entrance hall positioned at the front.

Exhibition Route — The exhibition route connects the new spiral with the existing museum building.

Connecting Landscape — A landscape carpet is elegantly draped over the sloped site.

View and Light — The spiral is lifted and suppressed to allow for daylight to illuminate the workstations and for watchmakers to enjoy views to the valley.

Musée Atelier Audemars Piguet is informed by the convergence of form and content in clockwork. It is conceived like the coils of a watch, ticking and advancing in perpetuity like the gallery visitors and watchmakers moving cyclically with the structure. Every element is governed by the functional requirements of the exhibition while appearing as a sculpture conceived in a single gesture. The all-glass structure is made up of two spirals that seamlessly integrate into the existing landscape. The museum’s collection, which showcases some 300 timepieces, is displayed alongside two in-situ production workshops, creating a living museum.

Visitors can observe watchmakers working within the curved glass walls of the museum and experience their expertise first-hand.

"Unlike most machines and most buildings today that have a disconnect between the body and the mind, the hardware and the software, for the Musée Atelier Audemars Piguet we have attempted to completely integrate the geometry and the performance, the form and the function, the space and the structure, the interior and the exterior in a symbiotic whole. It's an architecture in which the form is inseparable from its content, exposed like the gears and springs in a skeletonized open work."

Bjarke Ingels — Founder & Creative Director, BIG

As viewers circle the building, the rich collection of watches illuminates the history of Audemars Piguet and of watchmaking in the valley. The visit culminates at the center of the spiral with the display of some of the Manufacture’s most complicated watches. The spiral also includes two workshops, where Haute Joaillerie creations and Grandes Complications are crafted.

With the materials, more is less – an approach that takes inspiration from the art of watchmaking: miniaturization, making the elements as small as possible; “skeletonization,” excavating or subtracting all the unused material so the object becomes like a wireframe; and complication, loading as many functions as possible in the smallest amount of space.

The building fulfils the latest Swiss Minergie® requirements in terms of energy efficiency and high quality construction.

Bjarke Ingels Thomas Christoffersen Daniel Sundlin Beat Schenk Jakob Sand Blake Smith Jason Wu Kristian Hindsberg Otilia Pupezeanu Simon Scheller Claire Thomas Spiller Jan Casimir Marie Lancon Matthew Oravec

AWARDS

MIPIM Best Cultural and Sports Infrastructure, 2022

Ernst & Sohn Ingenieurbaupreis, 2022

Kyoto Design Award, Environment Design of the Year, 2021

AIA NY, Honor Award in Architecture, 2021

Prix Bilan de l’immobilier Public Buildings, 2020

German Design Award, 2020

Interior Design Best of Year Winner Museum/Art Gallery, 2020

Architizer A+ Awards Museum Popular Winner, 2020