Swiss Review / April 2022 / No.2 23 The Chipperfield- designed Kunsthaus extension is an imposing building with an elegant, rib-like facade. Photo: Keystone Germany. After 1945, he was of course flexible enough to adapt his business model to the new realities of the Cold War. He subsequently exported arms to all crisis regions around the world – not always legally, as it turned out. He invested thewealth hemade from the arms trade in various things – including art; Bührle had studied art as a young man. After the war, he bought countless works that Jewish gallerists and collectors had originally sold under duress – hence accusations that his amassed collection is essentially plundered art. Bührle was then able to develop close ties with the art-friendly Zurich elite by personally covering all the costs for the first extension of the Kunsthaus. Off limits Following Bührle’s sudden death in 1956, this art collection, currently overseen by the eponymous Bührle Foundation, remained virtually off limits for decades at a private villa on the outskirts of Zurich. The address was the victimof an art heist in 2008, when thieves took advantage of lax security. It was only then that Bührle’s uninsurable collection – worth many millions of francs – gained a wider public. In 2012, the Zurich electorate voted to approve 75 million francs in public funding for the recently completed Kunsthaus extension. The shadowy origins surrounding the Bührle collection set to be exhibited in the new building was common knowledge but barelymentioned at the time. A “contaminated” museum? In March 2022, it will have been exactly 20 years since the Bergier Commission presented its concluding report on the assets that Switzerland acquired during the SecondWorld War. This historical study significantly increased awareness among the Swiss public of the country’s role as an accomplice inNazi crimes. This begs the questionwhy controversy in Zurich surrounding the origins of the Bührle collection has only erupted now that the paintings are already hanging in the new building. Historian Erich Keller proffers an interesting theory in his book “Das kontaminierteMuseum” (The Contaminated Museum), revealing the close links between the Bührle collection, the left-of-centre Zurich city council and the Corine Mauch: “The controversy surrounding Bührle is good for us.”
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