Museum Rietberg
Underground museum extension of green crystal-patterned glass, doubling gallery space beneath a historic villa's park.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to Museum Rietberg in Zurich starts at the shard of green glass that is, in fact, less than a tenth of the museum, with the rest built downward into the hillside. It follows architects Alfred Grazioli and Adolf Krischanitz as they solved a constraint of a protected historic villa and its park by cutting two full stories of gallery underground instead of building outward. You'll hear why locals call the glass pavilion the Smaragd, and how a line from a poem written by a former resident of the villa, Mathilde Wesendonck, ended up shaping the pattern overhead. Look up at the glass panels before you head down the ramp behind them.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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