The "Giger Bar", halfway between a film set and a work of art. Built in honor of the Swiss creator of the Xenomorph of the movie "Alien"

Hans Ruedi Giger is mainly known by the general public for his visionary Oscar-winning projects for the seminal film Alien by Ridley Scott (1980), but the Swiss surrealist artist born in 1940 has left behind countless aerographic paintings created between the 70s and 80s, with which he was able to create a series of three-dimensional spaces in which his aesthetic views literally came to life. If in his paintings he vividly illustrated the genesis of what he saw as the next steps in the evolution of humanity - the symbiosis of man and machine in new biomechanical hybrid beings - he was in degrees in his sculptural and nightmare works to make the viewer / visitor part of them. All this is clearly visible in Gruyères, a picturesque town located in the heart of French-speaking Switzerland, where HR Giger has decided to renovate a four-story, 400-year-old medieval castle located atop a hill to make it its museum, a labyrinthine structure with two-meter thick walls that now host the most complete permanent exhibition of the artist's works, covering his 40-year career.

The Bar H.R. Giger, who took four years to complete and opened on April 12, 2003. The interior in the shape of an otherworldly womb is a cavernous skeletal structure covered with intertwined vertebrae that cross the vaulted ceiling of an ancient wing of castle. Moving inside it you have the acute feeling of finding yourself inside the biblical story of Jonah and the whale, of being literally in the womb of a fossilized and prehistoric beast. But the "Harkonnen" chairs, with the back of spinal cord surmounted by pelvic bones, and the stone slabs of the floor engraved with strange hieroglyphics suggest that somehow the visitor was transported to the remains of a future civilization.

The bar exudes an 'organic' atmosphere, with bone-colored furniture and imposing interior design. H. R. Giger used a synthetic material similar to a rock to blend the elements of the bar and thus preserve the atmosphere of this ancient castle, a historic landmark building. The cast concrete surfaces of the Bar furnishings have been polished to the point of being soft to the touch, enhancing the impression of being inside a creature that was once alive, of sitting on something, perhaps, less than alive, but equally very warm and enveloping .

In short, a trip out of town absolutely to be undertaken for any admirer of the works of H. R. Giger, a sensory experience to live in first person that our story can only vaguely describe.