Lisbeth Sachs - Animate Architecture

Lisbeth Sachs (1914–2002) caused a sensation at the very beginning of her professional career: freshly graduated, she won the 1939 competition for the Kurtheater Baden. With the building, opened in 1952, she expressed her lucid architectural position and experienced what it meant to be one of the first independent Swiss female architects in a male-dominated profession. For Sachs, construction was a procedural act that extended from craftsmanship to the suitability of materials and finally to people’s appropriation of spaces. She sought to achieve architecture that floated, emerging organically from the topography and following environmentally and socially compatible principles. Her interdisciplinary understanding of architecture as applied ecology makes her work and thinking more relevant now than ever.
Rahel Hartmann Schweizer’s book about this unconventional architect, researcher and critical writer is part of Switzerland’s contribution to the 2025 Architecture Biennale in Venice involving the revival by Annexe of Lisbeth Sachs’ temporary Saffa 1958 art gallery.