This summer, Studio Naegeli Gallery and Archive in Gstaad is proud to present the exhibition "Geometrically Quixotic", with Trix (b.1933) and Robert Haussmann (1931–2021), one of the most renowned Swiss architect and artistic duos of the 20th century, whose landmark projects include the reconstruction of Zurich’s main station, the legendary Kronenhalle bar, and many other objects in Switzerland and abroad.
At the core of many works by Trix and Robert Haussmann lies an aleatoric approach - a method rooted in the Latin alea ("dice") that embraces chance as an artistic tool. Inspired by aleatoricism, from Jean Arp’s compositional experiments to John Cage’s chance-based scores, the Haussmanns integrated play and unpredictability into a rigorously architectural logic.
Some of their sketches and drawings were indeed based on the roll of a dice: the number that came up would determine the shape, color, or rhythm of the composition. But it’s a choice within a carefully constructed system, an act which brings spontaneity into a dialogue with conceptual precision and perfectionism. The dice becomes both an archetype of order and a manifesto of unpredictability - a simple geometric figure from which labyrinths of meaning emerge.
A playful approach is also reflected in their concept of Manierismo Critico (1981), based on material distortions, shifts in scale, and visual paradoxes. They use trompe l’oeil, faux-marble painting, illusory curtains, mirrors, and deceptions to break reality, enlarge it, transform it. In works like Lehrstücke - one of which will be presented in the exhibition - a column becomes a system of drawers, undermining the usual logic of form and function. This idea of "disrupting form through function" allows them to introduce a poetic uncertainty into strictly structured space.
The exhibition also includes previously unseen archival objects, original drawings and sketches, as well as key conceptual works such as "Die Urkisten Nach dem Sündenfall" and "Log‐O‐Rithmic Slide Rule" - a slider-rule where the Haussmanns enter into a dialogue with language as a tool. Instead of numerical marks, the ruler features adjectives from architectural discourse; by shifting the ruler, the viewer is invited to experiences sometimes contradictory and sometimes absurd combinations of words. To mention the title of the exhibition "Geometrically Quixotic" was also generated by the same method.
This exhibition is an invitation into the vibrant and interactive universe of Trix and Robert Haussmann, where form and its sometimes distorted reflection, structure and chance, paradox and precision coexist in one space.
