Tucked between the extensive campus of Geneva’s University Hospital and a huddle of associated medical institutions, laboratories and surgeries, the Avenue de la Roseraie is trod by few casual visitors to the Swiss city. And yet here – out of sight in a small car park – is an extraordinary structure that, situated elsewhere, would surely draw the attention of architectural students like bees to a nectar-rich flower. Horticulturalists, too, perhaps, for whom a building nicknamed La Tulipe might well incite curiosity.
Sprouting from the ground in the guise of a faceted concrete stem, the building opens up and out, like a surreal architectonic flower, shedding weight as it rises, its core supported and shielded by filigree and tapering concrete ribs. Between the ribs, sheets of candy-coloured glass add to a sense of unfamiliarity reinforced by La Tulipe’s enigmatic entrance, an anodised bronze door offering no view inside. Incised above, in capitals, it says, ‘Fondation Pour Recherches Médicales’. Hint enough. Here is a shrine to medical research to which casual visitors are not invited unless they hold the key. Inside, a lift rises through three floors, each accommodating a cluster of laboratories facing out through those delicately framed tinted window petals.
