Paul Klee Centre, Bern

SAILING THE SEAS OF KLEE
One the world's hottest architects has applied Paul Klee's childlike forms to a museum in Bern devoted to the Swiss artist. On display: everything from puppets to paintings
DEANNA MACDONALD
Special to The Globe and Mail
August 6, 2005
BERN, SWITZERLAND -- On the outskirts of Bern, the capital of landlocked Switzerland, are found three perfect waves, rolling across fields of wheat and red poppies. The waves are made not of water but of moulded glass and metal, and were designed by celebrated Italian architect Renzo Piano.

The undulating museum complex looks like a landscape sculpture -- which is quite appropriate, given that the Zentrum Paul Klee is devoted to the playful, poetic art of Paul Klee (1879-1940), one of the founders of modernism and one of Bern's most famous native sons. The ZPK, which opened in June, is the largest collection of a single artist's work anywhere, according to the museum, and with a new home built by one the hottest architects working today -- Piano's long résumé includes the Pompidou Centre in Paris and the New York Times Building -- it firmly imprints Klee's art on Bern's cultural landscape.

Wrapped around a bend in the Aare River, Bern is filled with leafy vistas of Gothic spires, riverside cafés and, of course, numerous references to Klee. The World Heritage Site is home to streets named for his paintings, a signed walking route evokes the sites of his inspiration, even the trams that roll along Bern's cobblestone streets are festooned with ads incorporating his playful art. The highlight, however, is Piano's new art centre, which houses more than 4,000 of Klee's works, as well as a performance centre and hands-on museum for children (whom Klee saw as the source of all creativity).

I have always loved Klee's colourful images and in Bern I quickly discovered I was not alone. At the ZPK opening in June, the first person I asked about his art smiled as she recollected that she had a poster of a Klee painting on her bedroom wall as a teenager. His works -- with their vibrant colour, winking eyes and playful forms -- have an ability to delight, like a laughing child on a summer day. Using simple lines, colours and textures, his ordinary images contain a thoughtful and gentle humanity, a facet captured in Piano's lyrical structure.


The ZPK lies just outside Bern's historic core, and one of the most pleasant ways to get there is along the "Wege zu Klee" (Paths to Klee). The route follows in the artist's footsteps through the city where he lived for many years to the new museum and takes about 20 minutes to walk. The path also goes past the landscapes he painted.

Although much of Klee's adult career was spent in Germany, Bern remained his home. Born near Bern in 1879, Klee spent his youth in the city. In his 20s, he moved to Munich where he was a part of the German expressionist movement, the Blaue Reiter (Blue Rider). After the First World War, he became an influential art teacher at the Bauhaus in Weimar and Dresden, but by 1933 the Nazis had labelled both him and his art as "degenerate." Klee and his family fled to Bern, where, in his final seven years, he created some of his most profound works.

I began in the heart of Old Bern at the city's Kunstmuseum. Although the majority of Klee's paintings have moved to the ZPK, you can still see a few of his pictures alongside those of his Blaue Reiter co-members, Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc.

By the cathedral, a signpost tells me that Klee used to draw its soaring spires as a child. Crossing the Aare and walking through leafy suburbs with a mix of new and traditional Bernese houses -- and even small pastures for horses and sheep -- I catch glimpses of some of the landscapes Klee captured in his pictures. And suddenly, almost unexpectedly, a tall red sculptural rendition of a Klee painting and Renzo Piano's architectural waves come into view, peeking over green fields.

"My inspiration came from the land," Piano said at the ZPK's opening, "and, of course, from Paul Klee . . . and the poetics of his paintings."

The museum is found on the street named "Monument im Fruchtland" (Monument in the Fertile Country), the title of a 1929 Klee painting and an apt description for a building that blends into the agricultural surroundings. In fact, a farmer will continue to tend the fields around the museum, keeping the landscape as a living, changing feature. There are even plans to let grass grow to cover the building's undulating roof, transforming wave into hill. The museum grounds also hold a sculpture garden and the small cemetery where Klee is buried. The only dissonant note is the noisy highway that runs nearby. Although unseen from the museum, the buzz of cars seems contrary to Piano's goal of creating an "oasis of silence, of meditation, of inner devotion . . ."

The sounds, however, become no more than a distant hum inside the foyer, which is covered by a soaring arch flooded with natural light and Klee shapes -- childlike forms of circles and lines taken from his paintings -- projected on to the walls.

The building's "Middle Hill" (or wave) displays Klee's art in an airy, hangar-like space with white movable walls and pale wooden floors. The architectural space feels light and open -- ideal for displaying Klee's watercolours and paintings, as well as hand puppets he made for his children. The curators have intelligently avoided displaying all of Klee's works, instead presenting a representative sample that will change twice a year.

The labelling is in German only, but multilingual computer terminals are subtly inserted into benches through the room, adding an interactive element.

Klee's work explores ideas of colour, rhythm, perspective and representation, giving form to his belief that the role of the artist was not to reproduce reality, but rather to make visible a deeper inner truth. That he achieves this often with playful, lyrical images -- such as Von den Toren v. Kairuan (Before the Gates of Kairouan, 1914) inspired by travels in Tunisia or Monument im Fruchtland (1929) -- is part of his charm.

After Klee returned to Switzerland in 1933, however, the spiralling political situation and his own ill health brought a gentle gravitas to his work. Some are subtly darker, such as Vorhaben (Intention, 1938), whose playful lines form a sad, watchful figure; while others such as Tod und Feuer (Death and Fire, 1940), shock with painful colours and angry hollow eyes.

I must admit I couldn't decide which was more fascinating, the collection or the museum. This is a common question in an age of new museum buildings by star architects, such as Piano and Frank Gehry. In some cases, there is a feeling of unspoken competition for attention between architect and artist.

But Piano seems to have resisted that temptation and has created a timeless backdrop for Klee's art, which echoes the gentle lines and curves on the canvases. It is a quiet building of open, fluid spaces that allows Klee's art to shine and inspire a new generation.

"A museum," Piano said at the ZPK opening, "is a place where one should lose one's head -- and I hope you will lose it."

Pack your bags

KLEE CENTRE

Zentrum Paul Klee: Monument im Fruchtland 3; 41 (31) 359 0101; http://www.zpk.org.

WHERE TO STAY:

Hotel Belle Epoque: Gerechtigkeitsgasse 18; 41 (31) 311 4 36; belle-epoque.ch. An art-nouveau style hotel in the old city. Rates start at $185.

WHERE TO EAT:

At the Zentrum Paul Klee, try the elegant Swiss cuisine of Restaurant Schongrun (41 (31) 359 02 90; http://www.restaurant-schoengruen.ch).

Or, after experiencing the waves of Piano's museum, sit amid the real waves of the River Aare at Restaurant Schwellenmatteli (41 (31) 350 50 01; schwellenmaetteli.ch), a hip bar and Italian-inspired restaurant on a breakwater beneath Old Bern.

MORE INFORMATION

Paul Klee: swissinfo.org/sen/swissinfo.html?siteSect=2550.

Renzo Piano: renzopiano.com.

Bern tourism: http://www.berninfo.com.