Alfredo Häberli Design Development

In the 50s, the Construtivism mouvement, whose most important representative, Max Bill, together with artists such as Camille Graeser and Richard Paul Lohse, became very pronounced in Zurich, coined many a landmark, amongst others, one of the mouvement's most important museums, the Museum Haus Konstruktiv. Essentially, Constructivism deals with defining the harmony of dimensions and rules in their purest form. It puts systems in order and provides the latter with artistic impulses. But I did not choose it as a source of inspiration because I like to put in place systems - I did so for purely practical reasons, i.e. as a trick to camouflage the very old store premises with their low ceilings and completely irregular walls. This abstraction allowed me to hide many a detail that would have looked ugly if only covered with a layer of neutral white paint. Furthermore, the rectangular space ensures a beautiful contrast to the shoes that make an extremely organic impression. The lamps shoot out of the pedestal like mushrooms and ensure direct downward lighting and indirect upward illumination - a further trick to overplay the low ceiling. The main pedestal is interrupted with a series of cubes, serving to straighten the walls, integrate the pillars and the stairs and showcase the shoes. This form of functional volume is emphasized further by the «concrete» painting.