Inside architect Andrés Liesch's modernist home, influenced by Frank Lloyd Wright

At once brutalist and organic, the home of architect Andrés Liesch (1927-1990) sits in what feels like an epicentre for Swiss modernism. A couple of neighbouring little streets, Doldertal, Bergstrasse and Wolfbachtobelweg, in Zurich have come to define the country’s 20th-century architecture trajectory through a series of buildings. First, seminal architecture historian and critic Sigfried Giedion commissioned Marcel Breuer to build a pair of small apartment buildings on Doldertal in 1936.

After the war, architect and ETH Zurich professor Alfred Roth built his own house only a few metres away, on Wolfbachtobelweg. His colleagues, Flora Steiger-Crawford and Rudolf Steiger, followed suit with their own house in 1959, on Doldertal. This group of important modernist works was completed during the early 1970s by the little-known Liesch, who contributed the cascading, raw concrete form of an apartment building on nearby Bergstrasse. Completed in 1972, it features his own three-floor apartment at the top.

Explore architect Andrés Liesch's modernist home

‘Andrés Liesch was one of the best architects working in the Graubünden canton from the late 1950s to the 1980s. He was very much interested in concrete architecture, which was typical in the context of the Swiss architecture discourse of that time. But he was also touched by an exhibition on Frank Lloyd Wright, which opened at Kunsthaus in Zurich in 1952,’ says Swiss architecture historian Daniel Walser, who has researched the work of Liesch extensively and has written one of the few existing academic papers on his work.

The influence of ‘Wrightian’ organic architecture played a crucial role in the development of Swiss modernism after the war. Not only Liesch, but a whole generation of architects, such as Peppo Brivio and Tita Carloni, was fascinated by the more nature-inspired sensibility of the American modernist master. Most of them worked in the mountainous landscape of Switzerland, which created a perfect background for more contextual form-finding - albeit distinctly different to Wright’s American Prairie setting.

‘My stepfather was a strong, humorous, and life-loving person. He worked with great passion and won many architectural competitions,’ says his stepdaughter Seraina Feuerstein, who works as an artist and lives in the architect’s house today. Liesch grew up in Chur, Graubünden, and studied at ETH in Zurich between 1948 and 1952 under the guidance of Hans Hofmann. He opened his own office in Chur and Zurich in 1956. ‘Hoffmann was a symbol of modern architecture in Switzerland, and some young students wanted to break out from the Swiss tradition of rationalism and minimalism and embrace new visions,’ says Walser.

Wright and his organic take were a good alternative for Liesch, who worked over his prolific career mainly on public infrastructure projects, including several schools. He designed 38 schools for this canton only. It was a time when Switzerland underwent significant redevelopment, and Liesch saw potential in it and concentrated on public competitions. ‘He had a desire to develop the Graubünden canton for the new, modern society. He wanted to be local, but also showcase to the world his country’s vernacular context and open the region to international perspectives,’ says Daniel.

In most of his work, Liesch blended Wright's influence with the geometric formalism and austerity of Le Corbusier and Swiss brutalism. Drama, expressive forms and naked concrete came together to produce volumes that captivated. This is also the case with his own house.

Although he built a lot in Chur and around that region of the Swiss countryside, he eventually decided to settle down in a more urban context. His wife, Madelaine Demarlmels, was an artist, and together they decided to build their own house in Zurich. The resulting terraced apartment building, completed in 1971, contains three large housing units. Liesch picked the last three floors for himself and created a spacious apartment for his own family there.

The architecture is based on hexagonal shapes, which Liesch had used in the past, for instance, in a residential commission, Dr Hofmann House in Uitikon in 1963. In his own home, he orchestrated an even higher degree of geometric complexity. ‘Liesch was interested in a sculptural interior and exterior space and the utilisation of existing spatial relationships.

The interior impresses with its seeming simplicity of use and spatial arrangement, yet it is geometrically highly sophisticated, and this extends from the overall typological concept to the smallest detail,’ describes Walser. The flowing, semi-open sequence of living spaces, which is in turn spatially divided through clever partitioning into dining area, living room with fireplace, and study, is influenced by Wright's Prairie and Usonian Houses. He also developed the floor plans within a functional and adaptable, hexagonal honeycomb form.

‘Since the death of my mother in 2017, the house has been inhabited by my family, and I work in her studio,’ says Feuerstein. ‘My stepfather's credo was “to grasp the spirit of the times without betraying the genius loci.” Unfortunately, he died far too early at the age of only 62, leaving a large gap in our family,’ she concludes. Her works in rich, deep green hues complement the space beautifully and contrast with the rough concrete background, fittingly bringing a fresh, 21st-century spirit into this Swiss modernist gem.