SWISS SHAPES & ZURICH HAPPENS
SWISS SHAPES - YOUNG SWISS ARCHITECTS What comes after Swiss Box?
Since the nineties Swiss architecture has gained worldwide recognition beyond mere circles of experts. With its minimalist masterpieces between Basel and the Grisons, the so called Swiss Box achieved highest acclaim.
In the meantime, a new generation of young architects has left the path to abstraction and turned to new objectives: Moving interest from surface to space marks the works on display. Selected were projects presenting in exemplary fashion these new spatial, functional, constructive, ecological and urban planning qualities.
From holiday home to festive hut, from school edifice to funeral parlours, a large variety of uses can be detected. With reference to their local environments, sustainable materials are employed or new ways of sustainable energy concepts are explored. Emerging simultaneously is a design interest in new architectural forms which can be detected in a tendency towards multi-angular ground-plans: Swiss Shapes. Architectural bodies with their borders measured reference to their context and seem to grow out of the free intention of the architect(s). The formal repertoire of the selected buildings oscillates between these two polarities.
After Swiss Box, these projects with their specific Swiss Shapes represent a new architectural paradigm. A theoretical consideration of these new phenomena has still not been undertaken. A distanced view of Swiss architecture could facilitate this analysis.
Nine buildings by nine architects - EM2N / Mathias Müller and Daniel Niggl; Guignard + Saner / Pascale Guignard and Stefan Saner; Bosshard Vaquer / Daniel Bosshard and Meritxell Vaquer; Clavuot; Müller Sigrist Architekten AG / Pascal Müller and Peter Sigrist; Graber Pulver Architekten AG / Marco Graber and Thomas Pulver; Christ & Gantenbein AG / Christoph Gantenbein and Emmanuel Christ; sabarchitekten Basel / Markus Kägi, Andreas Reuter, Dominique Salathé, Thomas Schnabel; Boegli Kramp Architectes SA / Mattias Boegli and Adrian Kramp - offer insights into the latest production from Switzerland.
Curators of the exhibition are the young architects Florian Kessel and Roland Züger.
More information: www.swissshapes.org
ZURICH HAPPENS
The transformation of urban planning in Zurich
The exhibition examines the transformation of urban planning in Zurich under three priorities: transformation - process – humans, visualized by various media. Zurich Nord und Zurich West are exemplary for the tension between visions of urban planning and the reality of implementation. Both areas of development are conversion projects of former industrial voids that were internationally noticed for their success and have positively influenced rebuilding procedures in other cities.
After winning a competition in the early nineties, young team Sylvia Ruof and Cary Siress planned the conversion of the urban district Zurich Nord. An area marked by large-scale industrial plants evolving into an energetic living and working quarter. Experiences gained therefrom highly affected the conversion process of Zurich West which today, is a lively transformation in full progress.
The exhibition offers first insights into the complex topics of: urban development, design, planning and implementation in democratic co-determination. Large-scale images illustrate the conversion process of the two urban quarters of Zurich Nord and Zurich West. The show refers to an extensive analysis and documentation, currently in progress, which will describe the entire process in 2007. Historical change is portrayed in short by illustrations. The development is explained by text, incorporating the words and visual material of all parties involved such as initiators, planners and users. The whole display communicates essential features of strategies and plans, documents modern methods of urban renewal, presents successful results and offers future perspectives.
On entering the new studio exhibition space, a 3.50m high panorama catches the eye. Not only Zurich with its urban areas of Zurich Nord und Zurich West can be distinguised, but also a layering of OLD and NEW. Underneath the panorama, large-scale pictures „zoom“ into recently built projects and portray exemplary excerpts. In addition, the planning process is revealed and a selection of distinguished buildings from Zurich presented. Historical pictures of the ABB-grounds document the source of urban development and the resulting conversion process.
The Aedes exhibition project was initiated, curated and organized together with Matthias Erzinger of ETH Zürich/Forschung live!
Both exhibitions take place within the framework of the presentation of Canton Zurich at the Swiss national holiday on the 1st of August in Berlin and are supported by the Swiss Embassy, the Canton Zurich, the ETH Council, the ETH Zurich and the Schweizer Kulturstiftung Pro Helvetia.
The exhibitions are sponsored significantly by ABB and supported by Zumtobel.
Speakers at the opening will be:
Kristin Feireiss Aedes
Ambassador Dr. Christian Blickenstorfer Swiss Embassy in Berlin
Franz Eberhard Dipl. Architekt ETH / SIA / BSA, Director, Department for Urban Development, Zurich
Roland Züger and Florian Kessel curators of the exhibition Swiss Shapes
Aedes Catalogue
A joint Aedes-catalogue will be published for both exhibitions (€ 10.-)
