JAN MICHALSKI FOUNDATION

Set at the foot of the Jura Mountains, the Jan Michalski Foundation is a unique cultural complex dedicated to literature and writing. Created by Vera Michalski-Hoffmann in memory of her husband, it brings together a library, exhibition spaces, an auditorium and residences for writers within an exceptional natural setting.

Designed around a monumental concrete canopy by architects Vincent Mangeat and Pierre Wahlen, the complex evokes an artificial forest whose slender columns extend the surrounding landscape. Beneath this vast structure, the different buildings are organized around an open plaza overlooking Lake Geneva and the Alps.

Suspended from the canopy, a collection of individual writers’ cabins was later designed by an international group of architects, including Kengo Kuma, Alejandro Aravena, Marcio Kogan and Rintala Eggertsson. Each has its own architectural identity while sharing a restrained palette of concrete, wood, metal and glass.

Completed in 2017, the Foundation creates an unusual dialogue between architecture, literature and landscape — a place where individual structures coexist beneath a common roof, suspended between the forest and the sky.