The new Musée Atelier Audemars Piguet, a glass and steel pavilion stands on a grass land between the company’s two 19th-century buildings at its headquarters in Le Brassus, Switzerland. 

“We did have a small museum here but we had in mind to build an extension to present the richness of our watchmaking culture,” Jasmine Audemars, chairwoman of the family-owned company’s board of directors, said.

Bjarke Ingels, the Danish architect who founded Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) in Copenhagen in 2005 has undertaken projects like the tent-like Silicon Valley headquarters for Google and the Danish power plant with a slanted roof that doubles as a ski slope.

His proposed design for the watch museum, submitted to the brand’s competition in 2013, initially had little chance of success. For one thing, its circular, nearly flat roof violated regional building codes.

Read the full story here