From May to October, it was one of the icons of Expo.02, the national exposition which involved five cities in Switzerland. Today, a few months after the closure of the event, the floating monolith anchored in the middle of Lake Morat, designed by Jean Nouvel, has become something of a bulky legacy.

The company which built it would like to get rid of the enormous cube, which weighs 4000 tonnes and is at present unused, selling it however at a high price – 1.5 million dollars. But since the only potential buyer – a German restaurant which would like to transform it into a wine bar and bistrot – has offered “only” 275 thousand dollars, a more feasible alternative has been raised – to demolish the structure and recycle the materials (rusted metal).

The town of Morat, for its part, certainly cannot afford to but the building. It is too expensive, considering it can only count on 5800 contributors and from a tourist angle the town is in competition with nearby Lucerne and Berne.

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Saving the Expo (from Domus 850 July/August 2002)