Atelier Neuenschwander Architekten (Gockhausen)

For Matti Neuenschwander, architecture is the daily confrontation with the principles and perspectives of modernism. It all began with his apprenticeship as a draftsman with the Zurich architects Rudolf and Esther Guyer. He completed his subsequent architectural studies at the ETH Zurich, among others with Bernhard Hösli and Dolf Schneebeli, with a diploma in 1979. In the same year he joined his father Eduard Neuenschwander's office in Gockhausen.

Since 1983 Matti Neuenschwander has been running his own architectural office: Atelier Neuenschwander Architects.
He focuses on the renovation of anonymous building culture and on modern new buildings - not opposites, but different fields of application that he develops from the same impulse and brings together again and again.

When a barn becomes living space or a machine factory becomes a schoolhouse, respect for the existing is combined with the needs of the new use and the possibilities of new technologies. Whether conversion or new construction: the interplay of space and light, of light and dark, of inside and outside, protected and open, private and public always starts from scratch. It differentiates itself through individual processes into independent works that always also stand in a specific relationship to the natural and built environment: "My houses never begin and end at the facade."

"There is no decoration. Every building is self-evident. If a single element is designed as a sculpture, it always has a meaning: it fulfills a function or creates identity." Matti Neuenschwander is a representative of consistent reduction, but not of a barren, soulless architecture of self-expression. Matti Neuenschwander uses only a few and simple materials, but brings them into exciting and lively relationships with each other: "I go right down to the last detail when designing. I have respect and understanding for every craft in construction out of interest and from my professional background."

Matti Neuenschwander is interested in the skills of the people he works with. And for the ideas and wishes of the people he works for. If everything comes together well for everyone, the result is good architecture. Without compromise.