1 mins
LUTHIER GIANMARIA STELZER
MY SPACE
A peek into lutherie workshops around the world
ALL PHOTOS GIANMARIA STELZER
LOCATION Zurich, Switzerland
My workshop is around two miles west of the centre of Zurich, and is based in a huge historical building that was formerly used to repair railway engines and carriages. It’s part of a whole complex of buildings that are still owned by the railway company, which is now leasing the space out to creative businesses in an effort to make a kind of cultural quarter in the west of the city. My girlfriend is a brewer, and has set up her own brewery in the same building with her sister and brother-in-law. So my workshop is now a sealed-off section in the middle of this brewery. It seems that this positioning is attracting more visits from violin making friends than ever before!
We’ve built three small ‘houses’ within the main space we work in. There are green and blue houses for the brewery’s office and quality control lab, while the red house is my workshop. It takes up 50 sq m of the space we have, and has windows that look out on to the rest of the building. I also have natural light coming from above, as I’m on the top floor.
The area we’re in is already quite a cultural hub; the Zurich University of the Arts is on the other side of the railway lines, and the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich was based here for years while its main venue was being renovated. Originally I’d thought to devote myself only to new making, but since I’ve been here I’ve taken on more and more set-up work and adjustments for local players. It’s also meant I’ve had more clientele from the city; last year I made six new violins and four of them were bought by locally based musicians.
I made my main workbench myself, along with a carpenter friend. It’s made from maple – an unusual choice of material, but it’s meant to be a kind of reference to violin making. It has a vice built into the left-hand edge, which I made because I’m left-handed, and a violin-shaped vertical vice along its right leg.