Château des Cologny | SUPERVOID

The Château des Cologny is a "maison forte", a building with territorial garrison functions that is part of a complex of buildings built from 1622 onwards in the territory between the city of Geneva and the Jura mountain range.

The restoration project for the complex provides for new uses in the attic spaces of the main building and the monumental barn. These spaces, born as functional spaces, preserve in their generous internal volumes an extraordinary wooden structure.

The project adds some functional elements and partitions within these spaces. The added elements, which contain the services, are treated as clearly recognisable volumes and are clad in anodised aluminium, whose luminosity contrasts with the materiality of the old wooden roof.

The insertion of mirrored partition walls inside the existing trusses, on the other hand, is the spatial device that, through a visual illusion, restores the perception of the original dimension of the space. The project thus reflects an approach to restoration that, on the one hand, focuses on the idea of preserving the original spatial features and, on the other hand, fits into the historical structure in a rather non-mimetic way.