The German-born Swiss industrialist and art collector Emil Georg Bührle posing with his paintings in Zurich in 1954 Dmitri Kessel/The LIFE Picture Collection via Getty Images
Without Emil Georg Bührle’s success in selling weapons to Nazi Germany, Zurich’s Kunsthaus would not exist in its current form. But as the museum prepares to open a $230m extension that will double its current footprint, the industrialist is casting a long shadow over its plans.
The extension, by the British architect David Chipperfield, was 50% funded by the city and canton of Zurich. It has been designed in part to exhibit Bührle’s collection of Impressionist and post-Impressionist art. In 2012, his family foundation agreed a long-term loan of the works then housed in a private museum outside the city centre to the Kunsthaus. The plan is to show around 200 pieces by artists including Claude Monet, Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, Paul Gauguin and Vincent Van Gogh on the second floor