Château Gütsch Architecture Contest

Team from Luzern wins Château Gütsch Hotel Reconstruction and Extension Architecture Contest. The winners are ARGE Marques AG and Iwan Bühler Architekturbüro GmbH.

Lucerne/Zurich, October 7, 2008 – The Architecture Contest for the Extension and Renovation of the traditional Luzern Hotel Château Gütsch ended for a local Team in triumph. The jury voted unanimously for the project presented by Luzern ARGE Marques AG and Iwan Bühler Architekturbüro GmbH. However, the complexity of the guidelines and different degrees of the development intensity of the project areas require a revision of the chosen offer.

The Architecture Contest for the Extension and Renovation of the traditional Luzern Castle Hotel was initiated by Château Gütsch Immobilien AG, a subsidiary of the Moscow domiciled National Reserve Corporation (NRC), together with the city of Luzern at the end of May. After a thorough evaluation of potential candidates seven Teams were invited to submit their projects. Later one of them withdrew voluntarily.

A very complex matter in a geographically sensible area was to be solved. On the one hand, public interests as well as the requirements of the neighbouring proprietors should have been taken into account. On the other hand the requirements set by the Hotel Management and the proprietor were to be respected. Another challenging factor was the small reconstruction territory in a topographically difficult area as well as an exposed location of the object in the surroundings of the city of Luzern.

The high quality of the submitted material, a detailed approach and solution proposals of the Luzern ARGE Marques AG and Iwan Bühler Architekturbüro GmbH led to a unanimous preference of the jury. In the jury’s opinion the project complies subtly with the landscape showing respect to the unmistakable image of the present construction and meets most of the requirements of the challenging Boutique Hotel concept.

The complexity of the guidelines and the different degree of the development intensity of the project areas require, however, a chaperoned revision of the victorious offer by the Evaluation Board, claims the jury.

For further information please contact:
Markus Wassmer
Project Manager

Château Gütsch Immobilien AG
Mühlebachstrasse 70
8034 Zürich

T. +41 44 250 85 61
m.wassmer@guetschimmobilien.ch