Architecture is always a terrestrial phenomenon, and the built environment largely relies on substances extracted from the geosphere: from rock, sand, clay, to metallic ores, petroleum or gravel. This geological matter is routinely regarded as an inert realm, a passive resource to be appropriated, and although it does have a complex and eventful past, its own history is rarely ever associated to the history of architecture. Yet, now that we have become a planet-altering force and that the mutual capacity of humanity and environment to affect each other has become evident, we need to wonder how to write and represent a history of cities and architecture that stresses their relationship to geological materialities and temporalities.
In geologist Oswald Heer’s Die Urwelt der Schweiz (1865), an engraving shows Zurich in the last Ice Age, covered in a glacier and populated by mammoths. A representation without humans or architecture, which gives an insight into how the city was preceded and shaped by a deep history of glaciation and mountain building, of erosion, tectonics, sedimentation and water flows producing lasting effects and material accumulations. Learning from this precedent, ‘Zurich Before Zurich’ will propose a reflection on the terrestrial temporalities of the city, accounting for its ties with the past environments of Switzerland. Through individual case studies, each participant to the seminar will investigate the materiality of our immediate urban environment, and its reliance on the geological cycles which shaped it, going from an erratic from the Rhine Glacier embedded in a façade in Oberdorf; to the Horgen coal mine; a drill core of lake sediments; or the Uetliberg sandstone deposits. This seminar will offer a space to research the geological and architectural history of Zurich; to experiment with writing, looking for the right register and voice to make complex geocultural interactions intelligible; and with representation, reflecting on how drawing, photography, video or rendering can mediate deep time. Throughout the semester, a variety of facets of Zurich before Zurich will be explored and pieced together, producing a collective speculation on the geo-architectural reality of the city.
Lecturer: Dr. Galaad Van Daele
Thursdays 9-12 – HIL E9 – max. 18 students
7 sessions: 19 February / 5 March / 12 March / 2 April / 16 April / 23 April / 7 May
To take part, send a brief e-mail to vandaele@arch.ethz.ch
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See course in Vorlesungsverzeichnis: https://vvz.ethz.ch/Vorlesungsverzeichnis/lerneinheit.view?semkez=2026S&ansicht=ALLE&lerneinheitId=201838&lang=de