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Three large metallic vaults emerge out of a field of winter barley, echoing three wooded hills in the background. Each vault is made of a projecting zinc-cased arch separated by recessed strips of glazing and sun blinds.

鈥淲hen I came to the site, I saw the hills and the furrows made by the tractors,鈥� says Italian architect Renzo Piano. 鈥淭he building was designed by the eyes.鈥�

The building in question is a 拢48m museum devoted to Paul Klee, Switzerland鈥檚 greatest artist, which opens this week on the outskirts of his home town of Berne. The disarmingly straightforward response to nature by Piano, who designed the building with Arup鈥檚 London office as structural and services engineer, is entirely in the spirit of the early 20th-century pioneer of modern art, whose captivating doodle-like drawings fused natural representations with abstract forms.

As you approach the building, it fills out into an alluring sculptural essay in bold curves and gentle undulations. The arches over the three vaults, which Piano naturally describes as 鈥渉ills鈥�, turn out to be linked together at ground level in three smooth-flowing waves. Each of their clear-glazed facades is set back behind two of the arches and opens to reveal a lofty lower-ground floor. And the hills are not regimented in a straight line, but strung along a barely perceptible crescent that sets each hill at a slightly different angle.

Enter the building across one of the waves鈥� three troughs, and you find yourself in a spacious concourse that passes through the three hills. Here the effect of the curve in plan is more pronounced, as the 150 m concourse gradually disappears around a bend.

The building turns out to be larger than it lets on, as much of its 16,000 m² capacity is hidden in the lower-ground floors set behind the raised footpath and at the rear of the hills, where they merge into the sloping barley field.

The capacity reflects the fact that the Paul Klee Centre is much more than a gallery displaying 4000 paintings. It is, says its director, Andreas Marti, a multimedia cultural centre 鈥� albeit one inspired by a single artist.

鈥淜lee should be regarded as more than a painter,鈥� says Marti. 鈥淗e was just as gifted musically, he was involved in theatre and dance, he was a man of letters and he was, more importantly, an exceptionally able teacher.鈥� As a universal modern man, Klee was the embodiment of Germany鈥檚 avant-garde Bauhaus, where he taught for 10 years.

Accordingly, art galleries make up only the central hill of the building. The hill to the left contains a tiered 300-seat auditorium for music, dance and drama, a children鈥檚 creative centre and a restaurant. The hill on the right contains offices, archives and a seminar room.

In the central hill, the main collection of Klee鈥檚 work is housed in a huge, gentle vault without windows or rooflights, just like an aircraft hangar. Artificial light is subdued to just 50 lux to preserve the delicate watercolours and crayon drawings, yet there is no sense of gloominess.

The artworks are hung on lightweight screens that are suspended from the arches and leave open vistas into the upper void, making the whole extent of the gallery visible in one glance. Directly below the main gallery lies a smaller gallery for temporary exhibitions.

The project, which started off as a proposed extension to Berne鈥檚 19th-century art museum, was able to explode into its expansive new site and enlarged cultural remit thanks to the vision and generosity of surgeon Maurice M眉ller, who donated a full 拢30m from the proceeds of his invention of the artificial hip.

As an inspired fusion of architecture, technical design, sculpture and landscape, Piano鈥檚 new museum is a fitting tribute to the modern polymath, Paul Klee. It also progresses the art of museum design into the 21st century.

Project team

client Maurice and Martha M眉ller Foundation
architects Renzo Piano 黑洞社区 Workshop; ARB
structural and services engineer Arup
steel contractor Zwahlen & Mayr
facade contractor Tuchschmid