They are high-profile supporters of an architecture developed from existing structures, and both of them think of their work as a social task to a considerable degree: they are Armando Ruinelli (* 1954), who has been running an architectural office in Soglio (Bregaglia) since 1982, and Gion A. Caminada (* 1957), who has been working as an architect, town planner and construction consultant in Vrin (Lumnezia) since the beginning of the 1990s. After their “years of apprenticeship” in Zurich, they both returned to their home villages, where not only did they carry out projects, but they also got involved in community issues. Initially, they both worked exclusively in their home valleys, but today they are known and sought after beyond their country’s borders. The interest in the future of the peripheral Alpine valleys has remained a central aspect of their work. A conversation about village regeneration, townscape protection and political commitment, recorded by Ludmila Seifert, Managing Director of the association Bündner Heimatschutz (Homeland Protection of the canton of Grisons).
