- Bernhard Hoesli - collage and architecture

“Transparency arises wherever there are locations in space 

which can be assigned two or more systems of reference- where 

the classification is undefined and the choice between one 

classification possibility or another remains open.” 

- Bernhard Hoesli 

Bernhard Hoesli Monograph: Kevin Pappa

F. LEGER “The Gray Root” c.1953 

B. HOESLI “No. 13” c.1964 

Formation of Pedagogy 

Bernhard Hoesli was born on January 13th, in 1923 in 

Zurich, Switzerland to parents that owned a road construction 

company. After earning a degree in architecture from ETH he 

began working at Le Corbusier’s studio in Paris and Marsaille. 

While in Paris he studied painting under Fernand Leger who is 

largely responsible for the development of the Section d’Or, or 

Golden Section. Leger’s mentorship left evidence in some of 

Hoesli’s earlier collage works like No.13. Here similarities arise 

in the balance between the shallow and deep space. Through a 

diagrammatic lens both compositions are arrangements of figures, 

relatively in the same plane, in front of a secondary field. Both 

also have a major and minor grain, which begins to speak to the 

overlapping nature present in so many of Hoesli’s collages. 

Bernhard Hoesli Monograph: Kevin Pappa 


In 1951, he began his influential career in education 

by becoming a professor at the School of Architecture at the 

University of Texas at Austin. Alongside Colin Rowe and Robert 

Slutzky, the Texas Rangers changed the face of architectural 

education in the United States and Switzerland. Rowe and 

Slutzky’s definition of transparency laid groundwork for Hoesli’s 

teaching curriculum based on the use of precedents. At Texas a 

major pedagogical goal was identifying and teaching the language 

of Modern Architecture, and cubism was a key to that language. 

The normal precise wash renderings at the Ecole de Beaux Arts 

led to an architecture lacking in rigor. He began to rationalize 

and propagate the works of Cezanne and other cubists as a new 

language for demonstrating that rigor. Flattened, angular, and 

spatial abstractions of the space-mass continuum led to more 

justifiable compositions. Hoesli believed that cubism’s synthesize 

of figure and field rather than its fracture was the requisite 

characteristic of Modern Architecture. 

In 1956 the director of the School of Architecture at UT 

resigned causing a fallout of many of the Texas Rangers. Hoesli 

returned to Switzerland and began teaching the first year courses 

at the ETH in Zurich. From 1959 until 1981 he directed the first 

year design program – the Grundkurs – at the ETH. Hoesli’s 

pedagogical revolution became part of the permanent structure of 

the curriculum as he involved himself in practically all aspects of 

the architecture program. At the same time, he ran a Zurich firm 

with Werner Aebli between 1960 and 1970 while also serving as 

Chairman of the Architecture Department of the ETH. In 1972, he 

barely survived nearly fatal injuries from a car accident until his 

unexpected death in 1984. He was 61 years old. 


Collage Methodology 

His early collage work suggests that they were some 

form of retreat from and perhaps an opposition to the hardedged 

abstractions of modern architecture. It can be seen 

as his personal way of exploring the manipulation of space 

through the eyes of both the architect and the painter. 

However, a greater architectural overtone comprised of figure 

– field relationships exists. Compositions are organized by 

subtle overlappings, feathering of edges, and ambiguous depth 

cues. Often it is difficult to tell which planar elements advance 

and which recede. 

Hoesli also implements an assortment of materials in 

the collages. References to Papier Colle are best exemplified 

through torn and cut fragments of paper along with graphic 

clippings from periodicals. Layers of throwaway materials 

like cardboard, blocks of discarded wood, and common 

household materials prevent any notions of high art. A bias 

towards the avante-garde Art Informal style at the time is 

clarified by his incorporation of plain and otherwise useless 

materials. These haptic materials speak to the significance of 

chance and time in his design process. It is important to note 

Hoesli’s classification of a successful collage. 


“So a collage is not only meant as an object, 

something made, a result, but what is perhaps far more 

interesting: a process. Moreover, that behind this way 

of doing something which as a result then leads to a 

collage, the collage could be meant as an attitude of 

mind…” 

Hoesli’s works are literally and figuratively layered 

to reveal their material composition and methods of 

fabrication. Surface materials are often exposed as 

defined shapes trapped between other layers in the 

composition. This creates a reversal of figure and 

ground. Interrupted complex grids and patterns, 

thick built up materials, and textures set against sharp 

disharmonies and discontinuities eventually become 

synonyms to what he found challenging and generative 

in architectural design. 


Collage & Architecture 

For example, No. 2 is composed of a cluster of wood 

blocks that overlap two base levels, one raised, and a 

lower contoured beach-like level. At first glance, one 

may mistake this for an architectural model. Instead, 

the composition is juxtaposed against an alternative 

shallow sculptural relief. Paper covers multiple 

connections between masses which masques discrete 

building-like volumes. Wood grain of certain surfaces 

is not present, further denying the fact that they are 

architectural elements. The contrast between a shallow 

relief and architectural model sets up a dialogue 

between two-dimensional and three-dimensional 

space or a play of phenomenal transparency. The 

quiet monumentality present in several of his collages 

corresponds to his architecture. In the case of the 

Reynolds House, rectilinear and angles shapes respond 

to the site while the material palette dramaticizes the 

dialogue between earth and sky. 


In collage No. 26 a scaled hierarchy of differentiated 

elements begins to imply the plan of a Catholic Church 

in Glattbrugg, Switzerland. Here Hoesli features the 

pre-existing temporal qualities of the site. An old 

bell tower along the street for example, like a found 

object in collage, is integrated by means of a diagonal 

alignment with the church. 


Le Corbusier’s void-solid reversal painting is an 

impressive example of the spatial clamping together of 

external and internal - the mass-space continuum. This 

overall relationship can be applied to works like Villa 

Currutchet in La Plata, Argentina. Here interior and 

exterior spaces have sectional dialogues similar to Le 

Corbusier’s painting. 


Interpretation 

At the foundation of Hoesli’s work was the concept of temporality. 

His collages were only momentarily completed, not finished or 

inviolable works. He frequently revisited the collages at later dates, 

sometimes up to 15 years, and would pursue new ideas not stressed 

in the previously ‘completed’ collage. These ideas may be lingering 

in his mind or on the back of many of his works. Personal sketch 

fragments, comments, and dates were haphazardly arranged for future 

reference. On a concrete retaining wall leading to the garage at his 

house, he intermittently worked for many years on an ongoing outdoor 

collage. Exchanges between Hoesli, vandals, and the weather has 

unfortunately left no physical or photographic record. Confrontations 

between disparate elements and the return to old work encompass his 

underlying idea of impermanence. Hoesli’s unique style of updating 

keeps alive disturbing but productive questions and doubts. Who 

knows what came first – the unanswered question or the collages? 

“I am impatient…with the interminable insistence on the undeniable 

perceptual differences between the buildings by F.L. Wright, Le 

Corbusier, and Mies.” 


Hoesli’s collages were personal explorations that 

reveal a lot about his way of seeing and working. 

They brought up challenges interpreted as testing 

grounds for the design process he implemented 

in teaching. Hoesli’s commentary in the 

seminal Transparency essay is more concise and 

applicable than Rowe and Slutzky’s overly specific 

comparisons. For Hoesli, “this was a matter of 

implied as opposed to literal visual continuities 

and overlaps, and the perception of deep space 

constantly opposed to the implication of shallow 

space.” Transparency allows us to see structures 

through a lens independent of the differences 

between historical and modern – a tool for the 

production of complex systems of order during the 

design process. 

“Collage was not the celebration of our victory over 

modernity. It was living out the true promise of 

modernity as something both existentially fateful 

and socially cohesive.”

- Bernhard Hoesli - collage and architecture

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