Bernina transversal. Guido Baselgia – Bearth und Deplazes

The unique convergence of architecture and landscape found on the Bernina Pass inspired Swiss photographer Guido Baselgia to create a visual epic. The result is a one-of-a-kind presentation of the new road maintenance base near Bernina Pass, designed by renowned Swiss firm Bearth & Deplazes Architekten, in a seemingly arctic winter landscape. Baselgia explored the territory along the road and railway line with his analogue camera. His images also draw a connection between the existing infrastructures for traffic and energy production – built over the course of the landscape’s industrialisation and continued development since the late 19th century – to the architecture of the new maintenance base.

A concavely curved shield wall topped by a round tower is all that is visible of this vast, purely functional, and largely underground space. The shield wall cuts a segment from the existing topography and thereby encloses a courtyard along with an area of the surrounding landscape. The tower refuses direct encoding – until entering the camera obscura at its very top, which connects photography, architecture, and landscape to reveal that this place is about insights and not outlooks.

The book features a selection of Guido Baselgia’s striking photographs and reproductions of camera obscura images from the tower in outstanding duotone reproduction and documents Bearth & Deplazes’ architecture through concise texts, images, and selected plans.

Text in English, German and Italian.