The Villa Garbald in the Swiss Alps, a recently rediscovered masterpiece by Gottfried Semper, the 19th century German architect and that Miller Maranta refurbished and built a new extension.
The villa, designed while Semper was professor at the Eidgenossische Technische Hochschule (ETH) university in Zurich, was originally commissioned by Agostino Garbald, the director of customs in Castasegna, a town close to the Italian border. In 1958, when the last of the Garbald family died, the house was given to the ETH, which used it as a seminar centre.
The building’s august architectural heritage was somewhat forgotten until the late 1990s, when a competition was held to refurbish the faded house, and to extend it with new residential quarters for seminar delegates. Basel-based architect Miller Maranta won the project, and worked in collaboration with legendary Swiss engineer Jürg Conzett on the reinstatement of the rich interiors of the original building and a new extension. This new element is a counterpoint to Semper’s grand and romantic villa, referencing the vernacular buildings of the region.
