As popular base of tourists exploring the local area, Lucerne is equally rich in cultural and natural resources. Located next to the Vierwaldstattersee, Jean Nouvel’s new Cultural and Congress Center frames the spectacle of both these facets. Even before works commenced, the Lucerne Culture and Conference Center experienced a series of trouble: a winning competition submission, the project abandoned, then retrieved and modified, followed by a popular referendum.

It was meaningless challenge to provide a new concert hall, together with auditorium, conference facilities and a contemporary art museum for one of the most popular festivals in Europe. Once again, as in the case of Lyons Opera House, the Arab World Institute and the Cartier Foundation building, Nouvel enjoyed a stroke of sheer luck. In Walt Disney’s favorite city he disposed of an ideal site: a stone’s throw from the old wooden bridge, with the railway station and mountains as backdrop, the lakeside juts out in a slight promontory, turning the site into a natural proscenium.

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