Kirchner Museum Davos by Gigon Guyer Architects

Gigon / Guyer Architects are the winners of the Daylight-Award, which the Velux-Stiftung awarded for the third time after 2007 and 2010. The Daylight-Award is a prize that honors architecture projects, that systematically use daylight in order to increase quality of life and energy efficiency. The architects Annette Gigon and Mike Guyer received the award for their Kirchner Museum in Davos, Switzerland. The Kirchner Museum houses significant works by German expressionist painter Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. In this video, Annette Gigon and Mike Guyer talk about how important daylight is for their personal well-being, how they use daylight in their projects, and the challenges and solutions they found for the Kirchner Museum in Davos.

The reason why the Kirchner Museum was chosen by the jury of the Daylight-Award is that its lighting concept broke ground for other museum buildings, such as Peter Zumthor’s Kunsthaus Bregenz: It’s “an innovative light-solution, adapted to the climatic conditions of Davos is the basic idea and simultaneously the architectural concept of the building. Hardly another art museum before emphasized the opus of an artist in a similar way. Its influence on further museum-buildings is therefore of an outstanding meaning.”

The prize is endowed with 100’000 Swiss Francs. The Honorary Award was given to Zurich-based architect Peter Märkli for his museum La Congiunta in Giornico (Ticino, Switzerland). Members of the jury are Prof. Andrea Deplazes, Architect, ETH Zürich, Chairman; Prof. Colin Fournier, Architect, Bartlett School of Architecture, London; Prof. Jean-Louis Scartezzini, Solar Energy and Building Physics Laboratory, EPFL, Lausanne; Prof. Dr. Anna Wirz-Justice, Centre for Chronobiology, University of Basel; Urs Wolf, architect, Zürich; Kurt Stutz, Chairman of the board of the Velux Stiftung; Lene Kann-Rasmussen, Member of the board of the Velux Stiftung.

Velux Stiftung is a non-profit foundation for the promotion of research on Daylight and in Medical Areas and for the Preservation of Ecological Stability. In 2007, the Daylight-Award went to Bob Gysin + Partner Architects BGP in Zürich for their Forum Chriesbach in Dübendorf; the Honorary Award was won by Bearth & Deplazes Architekten, Chur / Zürich, and Gramazio & Kohler Architects, Zürich for their Gantenbein Vineyard; and Cruz & Ortiz, Seville, and Giraudi & Wettstein, Lugano for their footbridge Basel SBB Railway Station. In 2010 Peter Zumthor won the prize for his Theme Vals. Honorary Awards went to James Turrell for the Skyspace Piz Uter; and Stürm Wolf Architekten for the Kunst(Zeug)Haus Rapperswil-Jona.

The Daylight-Award was awarded for the third time on 18th January 2012 in Basel in collaboration with the Department of Architecture of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (D-ARCH ETH), Zurich.

Interview with Annette Gigon and Mike Guyer, Zürich (Switzerland), December 20, 2011.

PS: Slideshow and video coverage of the award ceremony after the jump. Video featuring Honorary Award winner Peter Märkli’s Museum La Congiunta in Giornico (Ticino, Switzerland) coming soon.

> Right-click (Mac: ctrl-click) this link to download Quicktime video file.

Photo set on Flickr:
Kirchner Museum Davos by Gigon / Guyer Architects

Velux Stiftung Daylight-Award 2012 Award Ceremony (Excerpt):

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