October 7, 2008
The new Westside complex designed by Daniel Libeskind will be inaugurated tomorrow in Berne. This is the largest private investment ever made in Switzerland, and is expected to welcome 3,500,000 visitors a year, and to become a point of reference and attraction for the entire region.
Built covering part of the A1/E25 motorway, the building complex is proposed as a new gate of entry for those approaching the city from the west; its construction required two and a half years to complete and, in peak periods, employed up to 2,000 people a day.
The project is conceived as an integration between architecture and landscape, which reflects the soul of the Berne districts; the facades that look onto the countryside, on its western side, are faced with wood to create a point of encounter between the city and nature.
The complex’s backbone is a shopping centre, characterised by a “medieval-like” spatial complexity which fully adapts, however, to the demands of contemporary living. It includes 55 shops and 10 restaurant-bars. It is completed by a 114-room hotel, a residential complex for the elderly, composed of 95 apartments, a cineplex with 11 movie theatres, and a swimming-pool with wellness centre.