Lausanne Tourism & Convention Bureau announces the official opening of the ArtLab at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), one of the two Swiss institutes of technology.
Designed by Japanese architect Kengo Kuma, ArtLab’s vast 250 metre slate roof stretches across three distinct spaces, which are dedicated to encouraging a closer connection between science and culture. With an area of 3,360m2, the completion cost for this unique venue totalled 35.5million Swiss Francs (approximately €33m).
The primary event space is housed in the Montreux Jazz Café, which offers cocktail capacity for 120 people, or 73 seated indoors and 40 on the terrace. The high-tech café showcases the Montreux Jazz Festival archives, which is listed on the UNESCO Memory of the World Register. The terminals within the café’s booths allow visitors to search and listen to the music database, which includes some 5,000 concerts by artists such as Aretha Franklin, David Bowie, Lenny Kravitz, Paloma Faith and
Lady Gaga.
The Experimental Exhibition Space sits at the centre of the ArtLab building and will host various displays throughout the year. The third element of ArtLab is the DataSquare, designed to share knowledge and interact with the general public by showcasing EPFL’s flagship big data research projects.