Lecture by CHRISTIAN KEREZ

Christian Kerez. Swiss architect Christian Kerez, born 1962 in Maracaibo (Venezuela), will be responsible for the Swiss Pavilion exhibition at the 15th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. Kerez studied at ETH Zurich and has been teaching there as a Professor of Architecture and Design since 2009. Recently, Christian Kerez received international praise for his proposal for a commercial tower building in Zhengzhou, China, and a large-scale social housing development project in Brazil. In Switzerland, he has made a name for himself with the construction of a new school in Leutschenbach. The compact building is characterised by huge steel lattice formwork and a top-floor gym offering a panoramic view. The load-bearing structure, material and spatial concept form a unity that is both clear and complex. The conceptual stringency of Kerez’s designs also becomes apparent in his «house with one wall», a two-family home in Zurich-Witikon formed from a single slab of concrete.

Kerez seeks to enable a new spatial experience that can only be brought about by architecture. Within the design process, he combines fundamental considerations with the question of how a specific architectural concept can make a worthwhile contribution to the everyday.