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The Fondation Jan Michalski pour l’Ecriture et la Littérature was created in memory of Jan Michalski to continue his work of supporting literary creation. The Foundation’s aim is to encourage the promotion of writing through the award of an international literary prize, the provision of grants and financial assistance, but also by hosting writers in residence and offering them the means to create their works. The Maison de l’Ecriture, entirely dedicated to literature, will make it possible to bring together on a single site all of the Foundation’s activities.
It will be constructed in Montricher, at the foot of the Jura Vaudois, on a site chosen for the beauty of the countryside, its broad vistas over the plain, the lake and the Alps, which symbolize the open spirit of the Maison de l’Ecriture. Its construction has been conceived as a small city, with certain of its buildings being anchored on the ground, while others are suspended from a canopy that may appear similar to a sculpted pergola covering the whole of the building area.
During the course of 2013, the Maison de l’Ecriture will receive its first guests. Five writers, including a couple, can stay at the same time. The individual residences, similar to suspended cabins, which lift their feet so as not to trample on the garden, to quote the architect Vincent Mangeat, all enjoy a panoramic view.
Around these central activities reserved for the residents, in the buildings anchored to the ground in this small city, there will be an exhibition space, a library and an auditorium open to all at certain times and which promise numerous cultural activities. In the meantime, the construction of the Maison de l’Ecriture has been entrusted to the enterprise Losinger, which has accepted the many challenges involved, in accordance with the plans drawn up by the architects V. Mangeat and P. Wahlen, in Nyon.
As emphasized by Vera Michalski-Hoffmann, who is at the origin of this significant cultural project, « We are lucky to live in an extraordinary country, one of the countries with the highest cultural density in the world. I would therefore like to place the Foundation in this context by making a contribution to this beautiful building. My hope is that the Maison de l’Ecriture will become a place of meetings and exchanges open to the world ».
