Architect Giacometti dies at 104

Swiss architect Bruno Giacometti, younger brother of the artists Alberto and Diego Giacometti, has died at the age of 104.

He was one of the most important Swiss architects after the Second World War.

After studying architecture at the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich with Otto Salvisberg and Karl Moser, two key figures of modern Swiss architecture, in 1930 he was recruited at the architecture office of Karl Egender in Zurich, where he worked for ten years.

There he designed, among other projects, the plans for Zurich’s Hallenstadion (1939). The stadium is now home to various sporting events and music concerts.

His other main works include the Swiss pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 1952, the hygiene and pharmacology institutes of Zurich University (1960), the town hall of Uster (1965), the natural history museum in Chur (1982) and the schools of Brusio (1962).

Giacometti was the youngest of the four sons of Giovanni and Annetta Giacometti. In 1935, he married Odette Duperret and they lived together until her death in February 2007.

Despite his importance as an architect, he told swissinfo.ch when he celebrated his centenary (see related story) that he didn’t consider himself an artist.

“I grew up in a family of artists and art was present every hour of every day. [But] art was not my vocation. [Instead] I have built houses thinking about their functions.”