The 2019 congress of the architectural journal Detail is dedicated to the so-called countryside - its urban development, the danger of rural suburbanisation and the need to defend a culture of the built environment in order to strengthen and preserve its intrinsic qualities.

Götz Menzel reports from the small town of St-Maurice, which, thanks to favourable circumstances, has been enjoying a museum night for more than a year now. Since the opening of the Oblique Gallery in the Maisons Duc in 2018, a joint event has brought together different venues to shape a new cultural identity, including the ContreContre space and those of the Castle and Abbey of St-Maurice. This new dynamic of the city is a phenomenon resulting both from the will of the Municipality and from individual initiatives. More information

Haus der Wirtschaft, Willi-Bleicher-Strasse 19, Stuttgart
From 10.00 am

The Housing Cooperative Zurich celebrates its 100th anniversary. On this occasion a variety of projects can be experienced in person from September 28th to 29th. As a kick-off to these visits, Open House Zurich and Andreas Ruby, director of the Swiss Architecture Museum, invited the following offices to talk about contemporary housing schemes: Arrhov Frick Arkitektkontor, Stockholm, Dreier Frenzel Architecture, Lausanne, GayMenzel, Monthey, Urbz, Mumbai/Geneva, LACOL Arquitectura Cooperativa, Barcelona, Heide & von Beckerath, Berlin, BHSF, Zurich, Atelier Kempe Thill, Rotterdam, Éo toutes architectures, Bordeaux, Kosmos, Moscow/Basel.

Götz Menzel will make call for mixity in Switzerland's zoning plans by taking Seoul’s Seunsangga Complex as a case study. More info on the event here.

Photography by GayMenzel

45 students of the Joint Master of Architecture design and build a festival enclosure on the site of the Grandes-Rames on the banks of the Sarine in Fribourg. Bleachers, a belvedere, a sunset. On June 21st, the day of the summer solstice, a pagan festival and the day of the Fête de la Musique, the site is transformed into a marvellous environment, born of a Shakespearean dream, and ready to welcome the electronic music collective Studio 1157. In the role of Quince, carpenter and director in the play "A Midsummer Night's Dream", Götz Menzel, François Esquivié and Romain Legros.

More information

GayMenzel is invited to participate at the exhibtion on "forms of urban coexistance in Switzerland" with the project for the new village centre of St-Germain, Savièse. Opening on Friday, November 23rd at 7pm at the S AM in Basel. More information here.

Our project Maisons Duc is awarded with the jury special prize. Thank you to Andrea Deplazes, Ludovica Molo and Dominique Salathé

Photography by Eik Frenzel