Bernina Transversal: Guido Baselgia – Bearth & Deplazes

The unique convergence of architecture and landscape found on the Bernina Pass inspired Swiss photographer Guido Baselgia to create a visual epic. The result is a one-of-a-kind presentation of the new road maintenance base near Bernina Pass, designed by renowned Swiss firm Bearth & Deplazes Architekten, in a seemingly arctic winter landscape. Baselgia explored the territory along the road and railway line with his analogue camera. His images also draw a connection between the existing infrastructures for traffic and energy production - built over the course of the landscape's industrialisation and continued development since the late 19th century - to the architecture of the new maintenance base.

A concavely curved shield wall topped by a round tower is all that is visible of this vast, purely functional, and largely underground space. The shield wall cuts a segment from the existing topography and thereby encloses a courtyard along with an area of the surrounding landscape. The tower refuses direct encoding - until entering the camera obscura at its very top, which connects photography, architecture, and landscape to reveal that this place is about insights and not outlooks.

The book features a selection of Guido Baselgia's striking photographs and reproductions of camera obscura images from the tower in outstanding duotone reproduction and documents Bearth & Deplazes' architecture through concise texts, images, and selected plans.

Text in English, German and Italian.

SELLING POINTS:
• Features Guido Baselgia's striking photographs of the landscape and infrastructure buildings in the winter landscape on Bernina pass in the Swiss Alps and a documentation of the new road maintenance base on the pass designed by renowned Swiss firm Bearth & Deplazes Architekten

70 colour, 8 b/w illustrations
• The maintenance base's tower contains a camera obscura at the top that is open to the public
• Rhaetian Railway's Bernina line is a UNESCO World Heritage site and its Bernina Express trains are a major international tourist attraction

ISBN: 9783038602378
Author: GLACIERS, BERNINA
Format: Hardcover
Publication date: 01/12/2021
RRP: $145.00
Pages: 144
Dimension: 300mm X 300mm
Imprint: Park Books