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Kunsthaus Zurich announces major donation towards extension

The Walter Haefner Foundation is supporting the extension to the Kunsthaus Zürich with a donation of CHF 20 million.


Kunsthaus Zurich View across Heimplatz to the façade with the new main entrance Status: 2011 after conclusion of preliminary design project © David Chipperfield Architects

In memory of the businessman Walter Haefner, who died on 19 June 2012, and his close ties over many years to the Kunsthaus Zürich, the Walter Haefner Foundation has decided to donate CHF 20 million towards the Kunsthaus extension. This represents a substantial increase to a donation already pledged in 2011.

The Kunsthaus Zürich was fortunate enough to enjoy a close relationship with Walter Haefner over almost five decades, through his membership of the Vereinigung Zürcher Kunstfreunde. In 1995, he donated twelve outstanding works by French masters to the Kunsthaus. The Haefner gift included eleven paintings by Monet, Gauguin and Magritte, Seurat and van Gogh as well as a pastel by Degas, and hugely enriched the collection of Impressionism and Classical Modernism that has proved so enduringly popular with the public. The Kunstgesellschaft is paying tribute to the extremely generous and forward- looking financial commitment demonstrated by his family and foundation after his death, by naming the new public entrance hall after Walter Haefner. www.kunsthaus.ch