Valerio Olgiati: 2G International Architecture Review, 37

For years now, Swiss architecture has been grabbing international attention not only for the high general level of its buildings but for a few great names. Aside from the megastudio of Herzog and de Meuron, which builds on all five continents, Switzerland has an extensive network of small studios with a modest work that, as in the case of Peter Zumthor and Peter Märkli, have crossed the frontier and become known the world over for the care, beauty and precision of their buildings. Valerio Olgiati's work would belong to this genealogy of the patient, well-made body of work.

Valerio Olgiati became known through the school in Paspels and, a little later, through the radical reconstruction of Das Gelbe Haus -two small buildings in villages in the Swiss canton of Grisons that appeared in all the main international magazines (a+u, Baumeister, AA Files, etc.). The radical nature of his approach and the perfect execution of clear and concise ideas have enabled his work to exude a special intensity and to stand out within the new crop of Swiss architecture.