ZURICH.- In memory of the businessman Walter Haefner, who died on 19 June 2012, and his close ties over many years to the Kunsthaus Zürich, the Walter Haefner Foundation has decided to donate CHF 20 million towards the Kunsthaus extension. This represents a substantial increase to a donation already pledged in 2011.

MANY YEARS OF DEDICATED PATRONAGE
The Kunsthaus Zürich was fortunate enough to enjoy a close relationship with Walter Haefner over almost five decades, through his membership of the Vereinigung Zürcher Kunstfreunde. In 1995, he donated twelve outstanding works by French masters to the Kunsthaus. The Haefner gift included eleven paintings by Monet, Gauguin and Magritte, Seurat and van Gogh as well as a pastel by Degas, and hugely enriched the collection of Impressionism and Classical Modernism that has proved so enduringly popular with the public. The Kunstgesellschaft is paying tribute to the extremely generous and forward-looking financial commitment demonstrated by his family and foundation after his death, by naming the new public entrance hall after Walter Haefner.

CHF 88 MILLION TARGET FOR PRIVATE CONTRIBUTIONS TO CONSTRUCTION COSTS
The Zürcher Kunstgesellschaft, the patron association of the Kunsthaus Zürich, has undertaken to raise private donations totalling CHF 88 million towards the cost of constructing the building designed by David Chipperfield Architects (for which the cost ceiling is CHF 206 million). The contribution from the Haefner Foundation takes the total towards the CHF 70 million mark. The money donated by a large number of foundations, families and companies will be administered in accordance with the specified purpose by a specially established body. The Kunstgesellschaft is confident of reaching its target by the time construction begins at the end of 2013. Completion of what will then be the largest museum of art in Switzerland is scheduled for 2017.