Source: Gizmodo.com
The Alps are littered with hidden buildings, from World War II-era bunkers to mansions built below ground to skirt building regulations. But here's an entirely new addition: A "rock" installed on a boulder-strewn slope that's hiding a cozy one-person cabin.
You'd
almost certainly miss it if you were driving by. If you were hiking,
maybe you'd notice the odd square window sticking out like a sore thumb
against the organic shapes around it, or maybe you'd pass it by, too.
You certainly wouldn't guess that inside its rough, grey facsimile of
stone you'd find a perfectly-detailed wooden cabin, complete with a
small bed, a fold-down table, a window, and even a fireplace.
It's
architectural camouflage, Alpine-style, and according the architects who
designed it as part of a residency at a sculpture park—the Swiss studio
Bureau A—it was inspired by the Swiss "strong tradition of observing the Alps, living with them, hiding inside them."
Bureau A
calls their folly "Antoine," the name of the main character in the novel
Derborence by Charles Ferdinand Ramuz. In the book, Antoine gets
trapped in a landslide in an Alpine valley and actually ends up living
under the rocks for seven weeks, miraculously surviving. It was designed
as part of a residency program
at an open-air sculpture park in Verbier, Switzerland, where Bureau A
spent six weeks designing and fabricating the boulder in the shop.
Most importantly, can anyone sleep in it? Are they taking reservations?!
Oddly enough, neither the architects nor the sculpture park in Verbier
mention whether you can stay over. Though there is this cryptic bit
extracted from the architect's statement describing Antoine as a place "somewhat subversive in its use where one can freely enter and hide." Which seems like a cryptic way of saying that if you can find it, you can use it. A few more photos follow.
