All I see is architecture, rhythmic lines, rhythmic surfaces.
Paul Klee (1902)

Throughout his career, Paul Klee explored architecture in a variety of ways. Early on, he recognized the “principles of form,” the structure, and the “exact organism” of this discipline. Like nature, architecture is based on the universal principles of pictorial configuration that produce living organisms. Building upon these ideas, Klee depicted carefully constructed edifices as well as fanciful palaces and temples.

Paul Klee’s works and pictorial thinking were influential for numerous architects. Many acquired one or more of his works. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe owned the largest collection. Lina Bo Bardi and Aldo van Eyck each bought one of his many depictions of imaginary architecture. A selection of these works is presented here. Carlo Scarpa designed the Klee exhibition at the 1948 Venice Biennale and subsequently adopted the compositional principles of Klee’s art. The postwar generation of architects, including Aldo Rossi and the Swiss architect Lisbeth Sachs, began to engage with Klee’s writings as well. They were especially interested in his process-oriented work. In their designs, nature’s organic generation of form became a key point of reference, superseding the rectangular severity of modern architecture. The architects featured here also shared the goal of creating fluid transitions between interior and exterior space, between architecture and nature, which related their designs to Klee’s architectonic and spatial representations. Here, we place a special emphasis on the work of the relatively unknown Swiss architect Lisbeth Sachs.

Lisbeth Sachs was one of the first Swiss women architects to open her own firm. While she was a student at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Sachs worked briefly with Alvar Alto in Helsinki. Shortly after her graduation in 1939, she won the competition for the Kurtheater in Baden. For her, it was important to engage in dialogue with visual art. As her numerous watercolours attest, she also drew and painted herself.

Sachs explored Paul Klee’s art and theory at different points in her life. For example, she wrote a review of a Klee exhibition and owned a copy of his theoretical writings as well as one of his pieces. In Klee’s work and thinking, she discerned an “awareness of inner worlds” that she wanted to bring to life in architecture. This connection between architecture and painting is particularly evident in an unrealized book project she designed on the work of the architect Frei Otto: Sachs had planned to dedicate a full chapter to the relationship between buildings and the visual arts. The cover was to feature an etching by Paul Klee while his painting Park Near Lu. (1938) would have been reproduced in one of the chapters.

Paul Klee, Suburb of Beride, 1927, 54, Pen and ink on paper on cardboard, Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern
Lisbeth Sachs wrote of this work: “The ease and radiance of an architecture bathed by lapping water could not be evoked in us more dramatically, more sensitively. In so doing, Klee’s work tends toward mobilizing and liberating the powers of perception and imagination. What a discovery of riches, inside and out! The discovery of a kinship among all forms of creation through their shared, universal changeability.

Kurtheater Baden, designed 1939, built 1952
For the Kurtheater in Baden, Lisbeth Sachs created an organic design that incorporates human movement within its spaces. The foyer draws theatregoers through the building along curved, natural lines. This spatial dynamic is heightened by the glass facade onto the park and the blending of interior and exterior, architecture and nature. As with Paul Klee, the boundaries between the natural and artificial are blurred.

Strauss Summer House on Lake Hallwil in Aesch, 1963 – 1967
Lisbeth Sachs heightened the principles tested at the Kurtheater in the Strauss Summer House on Lake Hallwil, which has a similar octagonal ground plan and open facade but combines natural, found, and industrial materials.

Art gallery for SAFFA 1958, Zurich
To develop a concept for the art gallery at the 2nd Swiss Exhibition for Women’s Work (SAFFA), Lisbeth Sachs thought about the best way to encounter art. Her answer: liberated from the “museum-like right angle,” one should discover art “wandering, strolling, on a freely winding trail.” Sachs designed three round pavilions that were interconnected by freestanding concrete walls. Their parameters were defined by curtains instead of facades, completely dissolving the boundaries between interior and exterior space. The positioning of the concrete walls followed Paul Klee’s theory of pictorial configuration, which was first published just two years before SAFFA.

The architect Verena Fuhrimann also appears to have engaged with Klee’s theory of pictorial configuration: the placement of the walls in her SAFFA-exhibition hall dedicated to the theme of “Parents and Children” follows the same principles as Sach’s art gallery. A flower bed in the middle appears to be a combination of two designs by Klee.

Lisbeth Sachs’s art gallery for the SAFFA will be reconstructed and brought to life in 2025 for the 19th Venice Architecture Biennale.

Design for a Youth Centre, Zurich, 1971/1981
Motivated by the disputes surrounding the Autonomous Youth Centre in Zurich (AJZ), Lisbeth Sachs designed a youth centre in 1971, even though she did not have a commission for it. Her idea for a floating island on Lake Zurich seems to have originated in a 1958 watercolour of islands off the coast of Greece. The second design from 1981 shows how, like a living organism, the con­struction has become elongated and grown more “arms.” With its branching cells, the organic form resembles the etching by Paul Klee that was to grace the cover of Sachs’s publication on Frei Otto.

The Italian architect Lina Bo Bardi emigrated to São Paulo with the art historian Pietro Maria Bardi in 1946. Although the design of her “glass house” was grounded in the simplified modern architecture of Europe, she later began to focus intently on Brazil’s artisanal tradition. From 1958 to 1964, she lived in Salvador da Bahia, where the influence of Afro-Brazilian culture is strong. An admirer of the plain objects and works of art made from simple materials, she later exhibited them in São Paulo. In Salvador, Bo Bardi founded the Museu de Arte Popular (Folk Art Museum). As she began to use more wood and concrete instead of metal and glass, Bo Bardi’s architecture became increasingly archaic. She often designed furniture for her buildings, including for the Museu de Arte and the SESC Pompéia, a cultural centre in São Paulo. Bo Bardi, who had little interest in structures that exude authority, always focused on people. In building for and with the people, she sought to counter Brazil’s inequities.

Paul Klee, Rock-Cut Temple (1925) in the Collection of Lina Bo Bardi
The Bardis acquired the drawing Rock-Cut Temple (1925) from the Swiss gallerist Suzanne Feigel. In 1951, Feigel had travelled to Brazil with 32 works by Paul Klee. Unfortunately, her hope to organize a Klee exhibition at the Museu de Arte de São Paulo, which was run by Pietro Maria Bardi, was not realized. With Rock-Cut Temple, the Bardis selected a drawing that displays structures with parallel surfaces typical of the Bauhaus years. In this work and others like it, the artist takes viewers on a journey to imaginary locales with mysterious buildings and monuments, with temples, tombs, and palaces. Perhaps Lina Bo Bardi was also drawn to the reference to prehistoric architecture shown in Rock-Cut Temple.

Casa de Vidro, São Paulo, 1951
As the Casa de Vidro (glass house) demonstrates, Lina Bo Bardi was interested in the fluid transition between interior and exterior, between nature and architecture. The house consists of large window facades and a thin steel frame. It was situated on a hill in what was then still a rural district of the city. As in Klee’s Rock-Cut Temple, architecture and nature meld organically as the boundaries between interior and exterior dissolve.

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, considered one of the most important modernist architects, served as the final director of the Bauhaus from 1930 to 1933. It was at the Bauhaus, where Paul Klee taught from 1921 to 1931, that the two met. In 1926, Mies van der Rohe began working closely with Lilly Reich (1885 – 1947), a German designer whose work encompassed interiors and their trappings. She led the weaving and interior design department at the Bauhaus in 1932 and 1933. While Reich remained in National Socialist Germany, Mies van der Rohe immigrated to the United States in 1937. He founded his own architecture firm in Chicago in 1939.

A great admirer of Paul Klee, Mies van der Rohe regularly acquired works by Klee at Katharine Kuh’s gallery in Chicago as well as the Galerie Nierendorf in New York. His collection included 26 works by Klee. According to an assistant, the architect expressed the wish to build a house with a large, colourful mural by Klee. Unfortunately, the project never came to fruition.

Both Mies van der Rohe and Klee pursued the goal of concentrating on the essentials in their work, true to the motto: less is more.

“The Dwelling of our Time” at the German Building Exposition in Berlin, 1931
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Lilly Reich were responsible for the section entitled “The Dwelling of our Time” at the German Building Exposition in Berlin. It included a model house. Paul Klee’s Departure of the Ghost (1931), whose location is unknown, hung in the dining room.

Design for the Snake River Resor House Project, Wyoming, 1937 – 1939
In 1937, after his arrival in the United States, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe began designing a house for the couple Stanley and Helen Resor near the Snake River in Wyoming. Overwhelmed by the natural surroundings, Mies van der Rohe made collages to show the synthesis of interior and exterior, architecture and nature. Combined without the use of perspective, photographs of the landscape and reproductions of works by Klee from the Resors’ art collection merge into a single plane. Similarly, Mies van der Rohe sought to unify the inside and outside by designing large windows for the house. In this way, the architectural design referenced certain elements of Klee’s artistic approach: superimposing layers of light and dark, colour and black, as in Colourful Meal (1928), the work within the collage.

Carlo Scarpa was primarily active in Italy, where he worked in relative isolation from contemporary trends. An important influence was the American architect Frank Lloyd Wright: “I have always admired Mies [van der Rohe] and [Alvaro] Aalto, but for me the work of Wright was the ‘illuminating flash.’” He translated Wright’s idea of an organic architecture into his own style. Additionally, Scarpa emphasized his own appreciation of nature and admiration for Japanese architecture as well as a subtle treatment the existing site. His work is also characterized by refined details, created with carefully selected materials and expert craftsmanship. Having first explored Klee’s work in 1948, Scarpa incorporated aspects of it into his some of his own projects.

Klee Exhibition, 24th Venice Biennale, 1948
In 1948, Scarpa designed an exhibition space in the central pavilion at the 24th Venice Biennale for 18 works by Klee. He decided, as in Klee’s painting Open (1933) (on view in the Bauhaus section of the Kosmos Klee exhibition), to rhythmize the space using an irregular arrangement of walls.

Book Pavilion, Giardini, 25th Venice Biennale, 1950
Scarpa drew the concept of a rigid book cover with “moveable” pages from Klee’s painting Picture Book (1937), applying it to the Book Pavilion in the Giardini at the Venice Biennale. There is a rigid section made out of concrete and another consisting of a light wooden structure. Its forms evoke the symbols in Klee’s “picture book.”

Zentner House, Zurich, 1964 – 1968
Scarpa’s only building outside of Italy is the Zentner House in Zurich. The floor, which consists of wooden planks, can be traced back to Klee’s “stripe” paintings. It appears that the architect successfully adapted Klee’s use of various layers on the surface to create an illusion of spatial depth.

The Dutch architect Aldo van Eyck studied at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich from 1938 to 1942. It was there that he met his future wife Hannie van Roojen, who would contribute to many of his projects. The two befriended the art historian couple Carola Giedion-Welcker and Sigfried Giedion, who introduced them to the world of modern art, including that of Paul Klee. They enjoyed the stimulating atmosphere in Zurich, where many artists found refuge from National Socialist persecution. In 1946, they established themselves in Amsterdam, where they stood up for the artists’ group Cobra, which was criticized for making work that seemed too much like children’s art. Between 1947 and 1978, they designed approximately 750 playgrounds. Like Paul Klee and others, van Eyck was convinced that it was necessary to return to the origins of creativity in order to make something meaningful and new. He was particularly interested in the creative process of children. He also studied “non-European” cultures through books and travel.

Paul Klee, Medieval Town (1924), from the collection of Aldo van Eyck
Aldo van Eyck acquired two works by Paul Klee in 1944. Although he sold the watercolour In the Desert (1914) the same year, the drawing Medieval Town (1924) hung in van Eyck’s apartment until his death. The drawing adorned an issue of the journal Forum that van Eyck designed. For that project, he combined an illustration of a village in Cameroon with a reproduction of Klee’s work to point out the parallels between them. Van Eyck’s Tripolis office complex in Amsterdam displays similarities with the artist’s intricate representation of a city.

In a 1946 letter to Lily Klee, Hannie van Eyck asked to purchase the painting Park Near Lu. (1938), but it was not for sale.

City Orphanage, Amsterdam, 1955 – 1960
The city orphanage in Amsterdam is Aldo van Eyck’s most famous building. It combines architecture, urban planning, and modern painting. Using a non-hierarchical cellular structure based upon a simple spatial module, Van Eyck created architecture on a human scale. At once a house and a city for children, the orphanage successfully combined microcosm and macrocosm. Today, the building is used as an open-concept office landscape for flexible work. Its geometrical arrangement is strongly reminiscent of Klee’s series of square pictures.

Installation by Aldo van Eyck with a Quotation by Paul Klee, Documenta X, Kassel, 1997
In 1997, Aldo van Eyck was invited to curate an exhibition about his work at documenta X in Kassel. He chose to include the following quotation from Paul Klee’s lecture in Jena (1924): “Nothing can be rushed. Things must grow, they must grow upward, and if the time ever comes for that work – then so much the better! We must go on seeking it. We have found parts, but not the whole. We still lack the ultimate power, for the people are not with us.”

The Italian designer and architect Aldo Rossi’s first projects from the 1960s reveal his clear and simplified trademark style. Rossi taught at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich from 1972 to 1974 and again from 1976 to 1978. As early as 1966/67, his writings reference Klee’s Bauhaus theory of configuration. In a note of 1974, Rossi emphasized the significance of process for Klee: “Paul Klee once said that we should be more interested in the ‘formative energies than the formal results.’ That means that at the school, we should place more value on the process of design than the finished results.” Rossi understood artistic creation as a model for a universally applicable design method.

In 1973, Rossi became the director of the international architecture section at the Milan Triennial. For the occasion, he published Architettura razionale (Rational Architecture). The book included a reproduction of Klee’s Italian Town (1928) as an example of the tension between the rational and the associative. In 1985, Rossi directed the 3rd Venice Architecture Biennial. He also designed furniture and kitchen equipment for the brand Alessi. Rossi advocated rethinking postwar architecture, which had been reduced to functionalism, and called for an engagement with architectural history. The aesthetics – the way architecture looked – was more important to him than pure functionalism. In his collages and drawings, Rossi combined theoretical problems, art historical quotations, and personal memories to create his own visual language.

Aldo Rossi, L‘Architettura della città, 1978, Padua: Marsilio Editori
Aldo Rossi reproduced a drawing by Paul Klee in the second, revised edition of L’Architettura della città of 1978. At first glance, the drawing seems unrelated to the book’s theme. It is one of ten illustrations that Klee made for Curt Corrinth’s novel Potsdamer Platz (1919/20), which focuses on Berlin’s city life. In his book, Rossi explores the emergence and development of Berlin and other great European metropolises.

Design for the Development of the Klösterliareal, Bern, 1981
In 1981, the city of Bern held a competition for the development of the Klösterliareal. The site has a special significance in terms of urban development and its history. Opposite the tip of the old town’s peninsula, between the Untertor and Nydegg Bridges, it formed a zone between city and country until the nineteenth century. The mix of urban and rural buildings, which were neglected in the 1980s, were to be replaced by a new development. Rossi’s design, which consisted of a steel cube and simple wooden houses on stilts, left the jury unconvinced. Since the winning project failed a voter referendum, the existing buildings were renovated instead.