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The Orphan's Dining Palace

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The technological innovation of antibiotics disrupted the imaginary of the Schatzalp Sanatorium turning it into a hotel. Ever since then it remained a historic building. This project aims to perform a possible dialogue between the Hotel Schatzalp in Davos with its environment, rendered through the narrative of two characters and its relationship. Nostalgic and corrupt, obsessive and liberating describes the fictional love story that wants to challenge the way cultural objects are disposed in the Swiss alpine city of Davos today.

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From myth to brand - The Orphans Dining Palace

Davos promotes itself as a place of health and retreat, yet today it is known as the city of innovation and research. In between this tension the Hotel Schatzalp serves as an experimental object to re-articulate its relationship to the city. That is where the narrative comes into play: The love story is the one between Wine and Milk, Dionysus and Apollon, the host and the parasite. As the concierge of the Schatzalp one of the two characters knows the locos inside and out. A Pinot Noir lover, a collector, a hunter and a seeker is waiting for someone to disrupt his daily routine. A Media Person, an orphan, a disruptive thinker wanders through the world, posting and sharing her drives and obsessions on social media without any vision where to stay next. His fascination towards her and the collected hidden objects of her parents, move him to build a very unique Dining Palace to catch the orphans attention. From myth to brand: With south-facing orientation, sunny balconies, large luminous halls the old sanatorium of the Schatzalp once attracted the high society of Europe with an innovative cure for tuberculosis: The very place where her parents passed away.

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The Orphans Dining Palace consists of two main forms of communication. The two authors of this project switch between the role of actors while on stage and the role of directors when on backstage. The stage of the play is a social media platform. On stage the actors stay in character and follow the script of the narrative. The avatars play out a dialogue which consists of a constant reaction of posts and comments on the social media platform. Their emerging relationship engenders the architectonic formulation. She loves to talk in text and images, he loves to react in text and model. On backstage the narrative is being revised with the voice of the directors, conducing this very catalogue. The aim is to achieve a healthy relationship at all levels and all scales: CHARACTERS - DISHES MENU - CHAMBER - FACADE - GARDEN - CITY - WORLD

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A fictional love story between two characters challenges the way cultural objects are disposed in the Swiss alpine city of Davos today. The dialogue between the nostalgic and its corruption, obsession and liberation is visible in moments of the most dangerous outbursts. He comes from the very specific locus of the Schatzalp: Dionysus, god of wine, madness and ecstasy. She is a stranger to the world: Apollo, god of sun, war and annihilation. Their common ground: Her parents, whom She never knew and of which He keeps many souvenirs.

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Mässigkeit und Unmässigkeit

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Spatial Relations - Abstract

00_ (teaser love story in the beginning*)

1_The necessity in this work is to be found in the following consideration: The delicate art of a healthy relationship is the oscillation between the nostalgic and its corruption, the souvenir and amnesia, obsession and liberation, affection and alienation and is visible in moments of the most dangerous outbursts. DIALOGUE = HEALTH

2_What is Davos? Davos is a place of health and retreat. It is the city of Thomas Mann’s Magic Mountain as well as the city of innovation and research. A side-by-side of nostalgia and alienation, of the romanticization of the Swiss Alps and a stage for disruptive global health discussions.

3_Before the invention of antibiotics the sunny weather as well as the fresh alpine air of Davos were supposed to be a new cure for tuberculosis patients - From myth to brand. The architecture of the old luxury sanatorium Schatzalp responds to this attributes accordingly. Treated as a cultural object the body of the old sanatorium is still being maintained in order to keep its „old character“ : The south-facing orientation, the sunny balconies, the large luminous halls, the arrangement with old washbasins along the corridors, white walls etc all contribute to the modern health architecture deriving from the time without effective medication. Yet since the invention of antibiotics, the building maintains its body but functions as a hotel fluctuating between high and hors-saison, between occupied and vacant. Light, Air, Sun: While in the city at its feet the most disruptive global innovations are being discussed once a year, the Schatzalp still rests on modernist slogans.

The Schatzalp needs a new narrative, thus a new brand.

4_ As a frame for the architectural formulation of this project, two characters are being introduced, whose love story challenges the way cultural objects are being disposed today. The concept of the love story can be expanded and upscaled to provoke discussions about the relations to other environments outside the building.

MEAL - CHAMBER - FACADE - GARDEN - CITY - WORLD

5_What is the relation of the Schatzalp as cultural object to its environment? How does it relate to the common understanding of health today?

The affection to the Schatzalp as a cultural object forms an identity that fixes the imaginary of the sanatorium giving it an ultimate character. This is in imbalance to the discussions happening in the city. In order to stay in line with its original state, the Schatzalp must enter into a dialogue with the city again.

In Parallel, the common understanding of health is the one of prevention before cure. Healthy food, exercising and comfort. These are the messages of health promotion in advertisement, on public transport and in the school curriculum.

6_Role of love story in the upper question. What is the relation of the fictional characters and where do they meet?

Take Milk and Wine for example.

7_Form of the project

Avatars, mask, social media, blog, dialogue, performance, feedback

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