Art Discovery and Censorship in the Centre William Rappard of Geneva: Building the Future

This is a history of the Centre William Rappard, the first building designed to house an international organization in Geneva, and its art treasures. For nearly a century, these works of art and decorations offered by governments and institutions encouraged smooth diplomacy and fluent international negotiations in the fields of labour, trade and human rights. On occasions hidden, removed and forgotten, and then recovered and restored, the history of the artworks in the Centre William Rappard represents the confrontation between art as diplomatic device and aesthetic experience, between representation and represented, between censorship and free expression. Even before its opening in 1926, the building started receiving works from the International Labour Organization member governments. Some pieces, such as the Geneva Window by Harry Clarke, never arrived in Geneva since it was censored by the Irish government. The Spanish Pygmalion by Eduardo Chicharro y Agüera was latter covered for its female nudity and remained hidden during decades. Later in the 1970s the secretariat of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade occupied the building and requested the removal of other major works. This was reversed in the 2010s by its successor the World Trade Organization, when many artworks were rediscovered, restored and placed in their original locations. However, new values in the world scene contributed to further changes in the building art, including the removal of Claude Namy’s caricature In GATT We Trust from public view in 2019. Art in the Centre William Rappard continues to speak to the viewer after waves of positive reception, censorship and recovery.

About the Author

Edmundo Murray is a lecturer and a former publishing officer at the World Trade Organisation. He obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Zurich in 2010 and has published several books, including Becoming gauchos ingleses: Diasporic models in Irish-Argentine Literature (2009) and Symphony of Flavors: Food and music in concert (2015). He has contributed articles in cultural history and Irish and Latin American Studies.