Reimagining the Chocolate Factory is a research, fabrication, and design studio that examines the Swiss chocolate factory as a culturally significant building type to Switzerland. Adaptive re-use, building character, and new ideas of continuity will guide our reimagining of the Swiss chocolate factory. Research, observation and documentation are integral to the studio. During the semester we learn about Swiss chocolate: its tradition, its production, and its manifestation as factory architecture in advertisement. Mixed from cacao beans that were grown in other lands then shipped to factories across Switzerland; Swiss chocolate and the depictions of their production facilities are often associated with the identity of Switzerland, its Swissness, portrayed around the world. And fanciful chocolate factories are often shown on candy wrappers, advertisements, and movies, making them more than places for production but a representation of the Swiss image as architectural form.
Beyond the reinterpretation of the chocolate factory, the studio reflects on contemporary culture where the collage of imagery propagates composites of architectural elements and structures. And we are wondering if the Swiss chocolate factories can be understood as just the formal structure of the buildings, or, as the fantastical characteristics suggested by their idealized portrayals in
media. Students work with a historic factory building in Switzerland, with an emphasis on the assembly of new and existing building characteristics. The site is an archival image of an existing chocolate factory.