Natural History Museum, St. Gallen, Switzerland

A monolith with a groovy façade: that’s the newly constructed Natural History Museum in St. Gallen. The look was realized using custom formliners. 

St. Gallen, Switzerland, saw the new construction of its Natural History Museum in 2016, costing just under 40 million euros. The building has used its neighbors for inspiration: a church and a botanical garden. The sacred appearance of the church is reflected in the building’s form language as well as its representative character. 

Two Zurich architecture firms, Armon Semadeni Architects and Michael Meier und Marius Hug Architects, chose an expressive façade in textured concrete. The grooves around the building vary in width and were realized using a custom formliner from the RECKLI UNIQUE range. 

RECKLI delivered 28 formliners measuring 4.7 meters by 1.4 meters to Swiss precast plant Gautschi. The formliners were used to pour in-situ concrete, giving the concrete surfaces a unique texture. The building was brought to life using class 4 exposed concrete and the material’s natural coloring.