This is a site not too dissimilar from the other... not depicting the story of the Second World War but... the cradle of watchmaking in Switzerland. … - Bjarke Ingels

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This is a site not too dissimilar from the other... not depicting the story of the Second World War but... the cradle of watchmaking in Switzerland. It's where Audemars and Piguet started making watches 150 years ago... I never had much of an interest... until I went to visit their workshop, invited to make this proposal for a small... competition, and I met this... master watchmaker... [H]e made me aware... that today we're so used to the divorce between hardware and software. Between... form and content, that the hardware is... this neutral, always identical and it's the software that gives... attribute... character and use. But in watchmaking and... architecture the hardware is... the software. It's the geometry and the interlocking of gears... materials, and... spaces that makes the clockwork... and the building work. ...[T]hey had this idea of a linear chronological exhibition, but that you should be able to... dig through and make shortcuts, so we... coiled the chronology into this... double spiral that leads to a central gallery in the middle, and then unwinds again. The roof follows the slope of the landscape bringing daylight and views deep into the floor plate. ...This resource spirál, which is the element inside the watch, that makes it store kinetic energy and... tick. There's not a single column in the entire building. It's as if a spiral is floating above you. The glass is... load-bearing. ...[O]ne of the elements of watchmaking is to provide the maximum impact with a minimum of material, skeletonization, minimization... is all about reducing the amount of material... [Y]ou can...look over the shoulders of some of the expert watchmakers, and ask them questions while they're trying to put very small things together... [A]t any time you can jump from one part of the chronology to the other. So you have this... surreal experience where the entire roof seems to be hovering over your head. You enter from the existing historical building and enter into the spiral. It's this... , environmentally high performing building, so we needed to provide passive sun shading and develop... undulating ribbons of brass, but have the effect that from the angle of the sun, they're opaque, but when you look at them straight from the inside they're entirely transparent, almost to the point where they... disappear... [F]or any architect who dreams about potentially doing something that is close to a perfectly built building, working in Switzerland where practically everybody is a watchmaker at heart, for watchmakers, is as good as it gets. ...[W]e've never seen concrete... metalwork or glasswork like this. ...[A] building for the pure thrill of celebrating the craftsmanship of watchmaking, and of architecture.