A Look Inside Doug Aitken's Mindbending Mirror House in The Swiss Alps
Kaleidoscopic views upon entering the single-story structure.
Those hiking the snow-covered mountains of Gstaad in Switzerland may come across Doug Aitken’s mirrored house called Mirage Gstaad. The single-story structure’s exterior is entirely covered in mirrors, reflecting the surrounding natural landscape and appearing to vanish into it.
The interiors are also fixated with mirrors, creating a kaleidoscopic effect upon entering the establishment. The abode was modeled after the rant houses in California that were built in the 1920s-1930s. It also draws design parallels with the modernist homes built by the iconic architect Frank Lloyd Wright.
“With every available surface clad in mirror it both absorbs and reflects the landscape around in such ways that the exterior will seemingly disappear just as the interior draws the viewer into a never-ending kaleidoscope of light and reflection,” as per a statement by Desert X. “As Mirage pulls the landscape in and reflects it back out, this classic one-story suburban house becomes a framing device, a perceptual echo-chamber endlessly bouncing between the dream of nature as pure uninhabited state and the pursuit of its conquest.”
Mirage Gstaad will remain in its mountain site for the rest of the year. Aitken previously erected the structure in the desert outside Palm Springs in 2017. He also installed it inside a former state bank in Detroit back in 2018. VernissageTV recently uploaded a video offering up-close views of the mirrored house. Check it out above.
Elsewhere in art, Steve McQueen’s Tate retrospective is finally reopening.
