By Joëlle Kuntz
A century passed since the arrival in Geneva of the « League of Nations », the new instrument for external relations between countries after the catastrophic events of the First World War. International diplomacy was to become democratic and its deliberations public. It would have its Headquarters in a palace, the « Palais des Nations ». And for its stewardship, thousands of offices.
The view on the Mont Blanc was the gift from Geneva to the LoN welcomed on the enchanting domains of the Rive droite. The idyllic romance of the lake and the mountain celebrated by Romanticists all throughout the XIX century and was to become the everyday scenery of the civil cervants that were remaking the world of the XX century.
In the book to be released in October 2017, Joëlle Kuntz explains the different stages of the construction of the buildings that constitute the international estate of the city. We read in this small portion of the Canton’s territory, the turbulent history of the offices’ architecture. With, from the beginning, the quarrel of modernity launched by Le Corbusier about the Palais des Nations. In between the ouster stone building inaugurated in 1926 for the International Labour Organisation and the glass petals that accommodate the “Maison de La paix” since 2014, it is an architectural adventure in Geneva that thus finds its first tale.
For the occasion of the Open Day, Joëlle Kuntz presents this work at 11 a.m., in the Delegates’ lounge on the third floor in building A (see plan). Her presentation will be followed by a book signing.
Credit for the cover picture ©Luca Fascini