Bernina Pass maintenance base

Building contractor

Tiefbauamt Kanton Graubünden

2019

The Berni­na­ Pass maintenance base clears the snow keeping Pu­schlav connected with Switzerland all year round:  a so-called “functional building”: infrastructural building = inexpensive. Facing it is the grandiose landscape of the Bernina Pass, which however, reveals traces of globalization and global warming. The maintenance base is thus also an observatory: the core of the concept is the ca­me­ra ob­scu­ra on the silo. The “purposeless” camera obscura or “pin hole camera” is made possible by its origins, the imponderables of future winters: it is a storage space for more gravel. In the case that these winters don’t arrive, it’s a center for on-site exploration: Noah’s Ark, the Titanic?

Camera Obscura: Guido Baselgia, Malans / B&D Architects, Chur