Atelier d'architecture Manini Pietrini Sàrl (Neuchâtel)

Atelier d'architecture Manini Pietrini was born from the meeting of Luigi Manini and Guido Pietrini in Neuchâtel. After different career paths, they collaborated on various projects, creating the Atelier in 1999.

The workspace is a former watchmaking factory on the shores of Lake Neuchâtel. Spaces have remained generous, transparency predominates, shelves are open-worked; nothing is sealed. For the past twenty years, projects of all kinds have been developed here, from urban scale to objects just a few centimetres in size. L'Atelier's activities range from urban planning studies and public and cultural constructions, to collective and individual housing, to the design and construction of pavilions, right through to object design.

What unites them is the search for a language of quietude and clarity. The conviction persists that the discipline of the project does not require a spectacular dimension, only the moral imperative of the search for quality and the adventure of a journey of affinity and sharing with the client. While the themes vary widely, the working method remains constant: a mile-long series of B2 pencil sketches approach and develop each project. With the sketch, the complexity of reality finds its synthesis and settles into solutions. The line prefigures the possible, encourages the future.