Escape from Avant-Garde: Architecture and Landscape in Hannes Meyer’s Kinderheim in Mümliswil (1938-39)

Built between 1938 and 1939, the Kinderheim in Mümliswil represents Hannes Meyer’s return to Switzerland after his time at the Bauhaus and after six years in the Soviet Union. It is a very different work from those of his functionalist period, because it coincides with a more mature and conscious return to regionalist ideas. Attention to the landscape was now a decisive point of the design process and the building is unthinkable if not considered in relation to the environment and the site, chosen with extreme care. Through the choices made by Meyer, among the most extreme radicals in the preceding years but also capable of self-criticism, the crisis of radical functionalism on the eve of war becomes obvious and ahead of its time.