Lucy Mackintosh, Contemporary art gallery in Lausanne, Switzerland
Lucy Mackintosh was a contemporary art gallery in Lausanne, housed inside a converted building on the EPFL campus. The space showed works by Swiss and international artists in an open environment without conventional walls or partitions.
The gallery opened in 2004 as a new space for contemporary art in Lausanne. It closed its physical location in 2013 and moved its activities online afterward.
The gallery used temperature zones to separate works instead of conventional walls, making the visit a physical experience. Visitors moved through areas defined by warmth and coolness rather than partitions.
Access to the gallery was through the EPFL campus grounds, so some orientation before arriving was helpful. Since temperature differences were part of the spatial concept, wearing comfortable and adaptable clothing was a good idea.
Architects Jean-Gilles Décosterd and Philippe Rahm designed the space using temperature gradients instead of walls, placing it among the early experiments with architecture shaped by invisible physical forces. This approach later influenced debates about the relationship between the human body, climate and built space.
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