Museum Rietberg

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.