Opened in 2016, the recent extension to Bündner Kunstmuseum in the old town of Chur is clad with a regular grid of square, coffered concrete elements. The new build­ing is the immediate vicinity of the classicist Villa Planta, the museum’s headquarters. In their design, which won an international com­petition, the architects organised the floors for the collections and temporary exhibitions below ground level in a minimised cube, which they placed with great precision at one side of the villa.

The strict geometry of the new extension uses a reduced, contemporary language to interpret the Palladian order of the existing building, in this way establishing a conceptual relationship between old and new. The museum is now entered through the new building. The foyer that extends across the width of the building and the laboratories and studios above it take up the villa’s main axis of symmetry. The central spaces are flanked by a core on either side. These accommodate the stair­cases and service spaces and carry the floor slabs. The two buildings are connected by a staircase that leads from the new rooms for the collection at the first basement level up into the villa.