26/08/2026
THIS SATURDAY 29 AUGUST, 5 PM
TALK! SGRAFFITO IN THE ENGADIN - 3 KÖNZ FOR THE ENGADIN
A talk by Pauline Martinet, in English and German, followed by drinks.
The Engadine owes its magnetism to its landscapes, but it is in its villages that its charm truly speaks. Sgraffiti are the ornament of these sculptural houses, whose proportions never cease to astonish.
Since the fifteenth century, their façades have been adorned with symbolic and ornamental motifs that lent them both stature and radiance. This traditional craft was admired and safeguarded by Iachen Ulrich Könz, the first to understand its worth. With the help of his two sons, he restored a great many houses and façades. Those sons, Constant and Steivan Liun — at first modest restorers in the service of heritage — had the daring, through their own artistic practice, to carry sgraffito into the modern age. After the Gothic, Baroque and neo-classical periods, they moved the craft forward and raised it to the rank of art.
Through a journey in images, I invite you to admire their finest façades, which in half a century have become one of the pictorial identities of the valley.
Pauline Martinet is a graphic designer and illustrator, and the author of Sgrafits, l’art de l’illusion (2023). Her own first sgraffito as an artist will be made in autumn 2026.
The Könz exhibition runs until 19 September 2026
Thursday - Saturday 3 - 6 pm and by appointment.
Sgrafits
Stalla Madulain
Engadin
Madulain Zuoz S-chanf
Gemeinde Madulain
St. Moritz
Engadin Art Association
