In Switzerland, Minimalism and Industrialism
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WETTINGEN, Switzerland -- Seen from the street, Ratibor and Nada Hadzimanovic's home, a boxy three-floor structure with a beige plaster exterior, a half basement peeping above ground, and a pitched terra cotta tile roof, isn't much of a looker. Neither is its location in Wettingen, a small town dotted with vineyards and farmland about 15 miles northwest of Zurich. Opposite the house are a plumbing and heating outfit, and a nondescript pink-and-gray apartment complex.
Inside the three-bedroom house, it is the mix of sleek minimalism and rough industrialism that is the eye-catcher. The design and construction were overseen by the couple's son, Pe, who came equipped with not only an architecture degree but an appreciation of his parents' evolving sensibilities.
Mr. Hadzimanovic, 70, an electrical engineer, and his wife, Nada, 64, had decided to put firm roots in Wettingen in 1982 with the purchase of their 4,500-square-foot house for 750,000 Swiss francs (around $400,000 at the time). The couple had met in their Serbian hometown of Petrovac, studied in Belgrade, and married in the 1960s; soon after both moved to Switzerland, where Mr. Hadzimanovic had taken an engineering job. They had a daughter, Natasa, now 38, and a son, Pe, 35. For nearly three decades, they made almost no changes to the house, making do with the kitchen's dirty-beige tiles that depicted windmills and grain reapers, and the gray wall-to-wall carpeting "that soaked up all the light," Mr. Hadzimanovic said.
But in 2007, when their kitchen appliances started to break down and they suspected what might be fungus, the Hadzimanovics decided it was time for drastic change.
"We wanted an open, modern space," said Mr. Hadzimanovic, who rides a Segway, the self-balancing two wheeler, to the supermarket (and even checks it onto flights).
For the facelift to the first floor, which includes the kitchen, living room, dining area, office and a bathroom, they enlisted their son, who earned an architecture degree from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, a university in Zurich known for producing visionaries like the Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava.
First Published June 9, 2011 12:00 am
