Regional Classicism

From Surrey, England, to northwestern Spain to southern Switzerland – Classical architect and design consultant David Mayernik has designed master plans for campuses across Europe. In addition to his plan for The American School in Switzerland (TASIS) in Collina D’Oro, Mayernik designed ten traditional buildings for the school.

Set in the hills below the Alps in an Italian-influenced region, the TASIS campus is its own hill town, as Mayernik describes it. “Land is extremely expensive in Switzerland and relatively limited,” he explains. “The idea here was to concentrate the buildings in order to preserve green space.” The design plan also serves as a metaphor for an ideal community that prepares students for civic life. Mayernik employed the same principles that apply in town planning. “The campus mimics the varied functions of a real village, with public and private spaces – living, academic and recreational functions,” he says.

TASIS and Mayernik agreed that the campus should be a positive addition to the natural and cultural landscape of the area. To this effect, the buildings were designed in the tradition of the Italian Renaissance. The M. Crist Fleming Library, the second building completed to date (after the gymnasium, see Traditional Building January/February 2004, page 24), is constructed of stuccoed masonry walls typical of local construction and has a clay-tile roof. Established as the most important new building on campus, it received the most refined, highest level of detail (of all of the buildings). Its main entry at the north is indicated by four two-story pilasters that frame an arched doorway and a broken pediment that rests above a frieze painted with a Latin inscription: Verum Bonum Pulchrum, Truth Goodness Beauty.

Other Classical features are the frescoes of Ars and Scientia, painted by Mayernik himself, which flank the second-floor balcony. “Classicism is a language, and its most noble purpose is to be rhetorical. I believe that in order for a building to be articulate, it must include figurative art,” he says. “Ars and Scientia represent the two main branches of learning that are found within the library. In a metaphorical way, the idea was that the student goes through a transformation by the time he or she reaches the second-floor balcony, synthesizing the knowledge that these symbolic figures represent.”

The interior of the building sustains Mayernik’s “Humanist approach to Classical design.” Ionic columns support the mid-span of the wide openings between the entry hall and periodicals room and the periodicals room and a reading room. The walnut woodwork that he designed – moveable shelving, paneled doors, piers and railings – was custom made in Tuscany. The Pritzlaff Reading Room features a coffered ceiling, and traditionally styled brass chandeliers and hanging lanterns throughout – custom fabricated by Fantechi & Daddi of Florence – are suited to the Classical architecture and ornament.

Mayernik was careful to specify building materials that are appropriate to the region. Stucco was chosen not only for the exterior walls but also for all of the interior ornament. The pediment and door hoods of the north façade are in cast stone and the interior columns were carved in stone. “Both the run-in-place stucco and the cast stonework on the exterior are intended to look like granite, the most commonly utilized stone in this region,” Mayernik says. “They were colored to resemble granite and the stone was cast with a degree of texture to the mold that matches granite.” Real granite, quarried locally, was specified for the base of the building, the arch surround over the main doors and the balcony – the last of which sits on granite brackets, “a very common local feature,” adds Mayernik.

One of the challenges Mayernik faced was coordinating the installation of exterior and interior details. “We were on a very tight schedule so we needed to come up with ways to sequence the interior finishes,” he says. The exterior stone casting was all done on-site, which meant that it was easier to manipulate. “The advantage to this method is that it could be detailed like real stone in a bearing wall condition, because it can be cast monolithically,” says Mayernik. The manufacturer transported the molds to the site – reducing the transportation costs, because it’s Styrofoam, not stone – and then the contractor took over. “This worked well, because the manufacturer has honed this method and I knew I could rely on the contractor,” Mayernik points out.

On the interior, in order to use both stucco and wood shelving, Mayernik treated the woodwork as “furniture,” or moveable articles. “Treating them this way in the Italian tradition meant that the shelves could be essentially slid into place,” Mayernik explains. “The woodwork, which required a long manufacturing period, could therefore arrive quite late in the construction process and could be installed quickly.” The stucco ornament was thus completed well in advance of the woodwork.

An intended result of this scheduling concern is that “the stucco could be only minimally integrated with the woodwork,” says Mayernik. “There exists a clear hierarchy between masonry ‘architecture’ and wood ‘furniture,’ especially in the reading rooms, violated only in the case of the wood lintels at the wide ground-floor openings and the wood piers of the second floor.” This aesthetic choice proved to be practical as well, because the height of the bookcases was lowered not only to allow them to read autonomously from the masonry but to allow the students to reach each shelf easily.

Other challenges of this project included designing a building to house three distinct functions and arranging the interior spaces in a logical, ordered way. The 11,653-sq.ft. building not only incorporates library rooms, but houses two classrooms on the second floor and a faculty apartment and dormitory on the third floor. With such diverse uses, it was imperative that the building have two distinct vertical circulation and acoustic isolation systems. “On the exterior, I indicated the residential functions with a stringcourse that separates the third floor from those below, and used shutters on the third-floor windows,” says Mayernik. “The interior was more complex as it involved not only aesthetics, but mechanical systems.”

Interior spaces needed to be maximized, but the shape of the site as determined by the setback line made this difficult. The Lower and Upper Pritzlaff Rooms are trapezoids – as is a room of the third-floor faculty apartment – so Mayernik designed a centralized opening in the ceiling of the Lower room to draw attention away from the overall shape. This also allows for aural control of the Upper room, “while metaphorically opening up the space in a way analogous to the poetics of reading,” adds Mayernik. The irregularly shaped room in the faculty apartment was not reconciled, because, Mayernik says, the room is of a generous size. He adds, “It’s an advantage really, because there is a spectacular view of mountain ranges from the master bedroom.”

An integral part of the project was the addition of a piazza where there had been a sloping lawn. Mayernik created a retaining wall, allowing a wider terrace space that provides a gathering area for the community, and set a fountain, carved in pietra medicea, at the north end. “[The piazza] links the library to Monticello, an existing classroom and dormitory building, and the gymnasium, creating cohesion to the disparate buildings and exterior space,” Mayernik explains. The Monticello arcade was repainted for the same reason. A promenade, created by Monticello’s arcade and a new line of ilex trees, creates a ceremonial approach to the library.

The M. Crist Fleming Library and Piazza were completed in just 16 months, in time for the dedication ceremony on May 21, 2004. Over the next decade or so, Mayernik will add eight more buildings to the TASIS community, realizing his ideal academic village. – Hadiya Strasberg

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Last Updated February 15, 2008