With its third extension, the Kunsthaus Zurich can legitimately claim to be the largest museum in Switzerland. The competition is fierce in a country where recent initiatives to expand museums have multiplied, such as the extension of the Kunsthaus Basel by Christ & Gantenbein (2016) and more recently the erection of the new Musée Cantonal des Beaux-Arts de Lausanne (MACBA) by the Estudio Barozzi Veiga (2019). Half funded by the Canton and City of Zurich and half by the Zürcher Kunstgesellschaft (the board of the institution), the project originated in 2001. An architectural competition held in 2008 was won by David Chipperfield Architects, well-known for its innovative museum designs, such as the restoration of the Neues Museum, Berlin (1993–2009), the extension of the Folkwang Museum, Essen (2007–09) and the connection of Burlington House and the Burlington Gardens for the Royal Academy of Arts, London (2008–18). After five years of construction, from 2015 to 2020, the Chipperfield building has finally opened to the public.

The new extension has been harmoniously integrated into the urban fabric.(1) A great cuboid on a square plan, it is defined by its luxurious sobriety (Fig.30). It accords well with the Vienna Secession-style Classicism of the original Kunsthaus of 1910, designed by Karl Moser, which it faces across the Heimplatz. The exterior of the new building, clad in local limestone, is covered with a grid of horizontal stringcourses and vertical mullions that extends over walls and windows. Visitors enter a wide lobby, leading to a monumental staircase, which gives access to two floors on which an enfilade of exhibition rooms are located, mostly lit by filtered daylight. High-quality materials have been used for the interiors. The smooth concrete of the walls is combined with grey marble and oak for the floors and brushed brass for the handrails and door furniture. These recall the interior of the 1910 building, which is linked to the extension by a tunnel.

The opening of the Chipperfield building is associated with something of a curatorial revolution. Greater importance will be given to contemporary art and such narratives as postcolonial discourses, feminism and climate change. These issues are addressed in temporary themed exhibitions of contemporary artists, held in dedicated exhibition spaces. Yet the display is not innovative; the placement of the paintings, for instance, hung in regular intervals on white walls, is quite traditional. The main merit of the new building lies in the additional space for display it provides. Unlike other museums in capital cities, the Kunsthaus does not house a state collection but private collections that are on long-term loan to the Zürcher Kunstgesellschaft as well as private donations and individual loans. The building currently houses the Werner and Gabriele Merzbacher collection of mainly French and German Expressionist works by such artists as André Derain, Maurice de Vlaminck and Erich Heckel. Works are also on display from the Hubert Looser Foundation, which focuses on North American and European post-war art with important works of Abstract Expressionism, Minimalism and Arte Povera. But the most significant new arrival, and the one that the public is most keen to see, is the Emil Bührle Collection.

Emil Bührle (1890–1956) began buying in 1936. His collection predominantly consists of French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings, complemented by religious sculptures from southern Germany and old master paintings.(2) The display of these works in the splendid new building of a public institution has been the subject of public controversy. The Swiss historian and journalist Erich Keller, for example, has accused the museum of hosting a collection ‘contaminated’ by war, forced migration and the Holocaust.(3) Bührle’s fortune was based on the production and sale of weapons to among others Nazi Germany and the Allies, and on child and slave labour. Moreover, some of the exhibited items were bought by Bührle from Jews who sold their collections because they were forced to flee from Nazi Germany. After the war the Swiss Supreme Court requested Bührle to restitute to their legitimate owners or to repurchase thirteen items that had been looted by the Nazi regime, which he did. An entire room in the Chipperfield building is dedicated to the history of the collection and the collector, based on an extensive survey commissioned by the Canton and City of Zurich, directed by Matthieu Leimgruber, professor at the University of Zurich.(4) A complete provenance research, undertaken by Lukas Gloor, an art historian and the head of the Bührle foundation from 2002 to 2021, is available on the Foundation’s website.(5)

The display of the collection, the research produced by scholars and the ongoing public debates highlight two important concerns about the Bührle collection.(6) Firstly, it is testimony to the lasting ties that connect art with political and economic powers, despite statements of independence expressed by advocates of formalist Modernism. Secondly, Bürhle’s taste in paintings reflects the development of art history as an academic discipline in the first half of the twentieth century. His interest in Manet, Degas, Monet, Cézanne, Van Gogh and Gauguin was shaped by the concept of modern painting as an autonomous practice, built on a succession of movements that centred on Paris, as it was defined by such authors as Roger Fry, Julius Meier-Graefe and Clement Greenberg. Yet Bührle chose paintings of such quality and importance that his collection paves the way for alternative art-historical narratives. For instance, Camille Pissarro’s painting The conversation, Louveciennes (Fig.32) demonstrates the importance of petit-bourgeois life and leisure as both subject and milieu for the growth of Impressionism. Paul Signac’s Milliners (Fig.31), depicting two seamstresses working from home, helps us to understand the social and political commitment of Neo- Impressionism, often overlooked in favour of aesthetic questions. Despite the legitimate and serious concerns, we can rejoice that such a collection is made accessible to the public.

1 See David Chipperfield Architects Berlin and the Kunsthaus Zürich, Zurich 2021, p.10.

2 For a richly documented ‘biography of the collection’ and for Bührle, see: L. Gloor, ed.: The Emil Bührle Collection: History, Full Catalogue and 70 Masterpieces, Munich 2021.

3 E. Keller: Das kontaminierte Museum: Das Kunsthaus Zürich und die Sammlung Bührle, Zurich 2021.

4 M. Leimgruber, ed.: Kriegsgeschäfte, Kapital und Kunsthaus: Die Entstehung der Sammlung Emil Bührle im Historischen Kontext, Zurich 2021, available at https://www.fsw.uzh.ch/de/ personenaz/lehrstuhlleimgruber/Forschung/ Bührle.html, accessed 10th February 2022.

5 Available at https://www.buehrle.ch/en/ provenances/, accessed 10th February 2022.

6 The principal elements of this debate have been published in: Republik, the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Le Temps, the New York Times and Le Monde.