Zurich Monuments
Zurich Monuments
Introduction 17 February 2026, 10 am
Gramsci Monument, Thomas Hirschhorn 2013
I try to make a new kind of monument. A precarious monument. A monument for a limited time. I make monuments for philosophers because they have something to say today. Philosophers can give the courage to think, the pleasure to reflect. I like the strong sense in philosophical writings, the questions about human existence and how humans can think. I like full-time thinking.
MONUMENTS, Thomas Hirschhorn 2003
While rooted in the ideas of Deleuze, Spinoza, Bataille and Gramsci, Thomas Hirschhorn’s Monuments are not didactic or elitist. Through an extensive and complex process of ‘fieldwork’ the artist searches out fertile situations and willing accomplices that enable his Monuments to profoundly take root, becoming places of care, exchange and learning. The process of their planning, construction, and activation transforms all who encounter them, most of all the artist himself.
This semester we will use the example of Hirschhorn alongside the similarly rich and engaged practices of Group Material, who were active in the United States between 1979 and 1996, and ruangrupa, who have been working as artists, curators and activists in Indonesia since 2000. We will develop architectures that engage contemporary Zurich and its people, bringing a broad idea of learning into direct contact with people’s everyday lives. On sites already occupied by living and working we will design small and precise new buildings that add to and disrupt existing spaces and uses. A kind of schoolhouse, that despite its small scale and a certain precarity, through its formal precision and ability to connect and communicate, has the quality of being a new kind of monument in the city.
The semester will be arranged as a clear and continuous process where research is seamless with design, where individual work runs parallel to group work, where the urban is considered alongside the full scale. Our journey will be accompanied by friends and guests who will become part of the journey. We hope you will join us.
Construction and writing as integrated disciplines are included in this course.
Introduction: 17 February 2026, 10:00 am, ONA E30
FS 2026, ETH Zürich, Studio Caruso
Emilie Appercé, Lucia Bernini, Tibor Bielicky, Adam Caruso, Florian Kilian Jaritz
Magic Numbers
Seminar Week: March 15–19, 2026
Dominican House, Simone and Lucien Kroll 1975
Proportions, systems, and numbers have long been used in architecture to embody ideas and to invoke spirits and gods. In the 20th, nowhere has this connection between numbers and meaning been so strong as in the Low Countries, where mysticism, modernism and structuralism were deployed to embody ideas of efficiency, performance, social and spiritual emancipation. We will go on a quest through the Netherlands and Belgium in search of the magic numbers. We will visit a monastery by Hans van der Laan, an orphanage by Aldo van Eyck, an insurance headquarters by Herman Hertzberger and
participatory housing by Simone and Lucien Kroll. As well as experiencing these landmarks of 20th century architecture we will also meet contemporary practitioners to see what the legacy of these ideas are today.
The costs are 501–750 CHF, including accommodation,local transportation by car, two dinners, entrances and the reader.
Category C, 16 students
FS 2026, ETH Zürich, Studio Caruso
Emilie Appercé, Lucia Bernini, Tibor Bielicky, Adam Caruso, Florian Kilian Jaritz
The Pleasure in Small Things
Final Discussions & Exhibition
December 16, 2025
Tuesday, December 16th, Exhibition & Discussions, ETH Zürich, ONA E30, 08:00 – 19:00
Guests: Monster Chetwynd, Pierre Chèvremont, Tuukka Laurila, Nora Walter
Restaging – Reimagining: Exhibition and Discussions
October 15, 2025
Group A
Wednesday, October 15th, Exhibition & Discussions, ETH Zürich, ONA E30, 10:00 – 17:00
Diploma FS 2026
Architecture School
Dance Deck, Kentfield California, Anna Halprin 1954
The FAU (1969) designed by Vilanova Artigas was an expression of the radical Paulista architecture school of the 1960s, and Gund Hall (1972) designed by John Andrews had similar grand ambitions. The HIL building tells a very different story, accidentally becoming the department of architecture when the ETH administration decided it was best to remove architecture students from the city centre where they had become too involved in the youth protests of the 1970s. The ugly brown building has never been much of an expression of our school’s desires.
This semester we will use the diploma project to explore how the HIL building can be re-structured to be a base for the department, and a more hospitable and sustainable place to meet and work. Since it is unlikely that the present labyrinth could be improved by enlargement, our efforts will be to concentrate the existing, making it lighter, clearer and more flexible.
We will also study examples of more dispersed and non-institutional learning, like Anna Halprin’s Dance Deck and Thomas Hirschhorn’s Gramsci Monument, places that demonstrate how learning can be more flexible and responsive to both its students and to ever changing educational contexts. We will combine the idea of a central base with mutable cells, spaces in and around the city that can more closely engage with the diverse people and situations of Zurich and beyond. By working both with the centre and the non-centre, perhaps we can start to imagine an architecture school fit for the 21st century.
We will continue to collaborate with Newrope in three ‘rooms of entanglement’, workshops where content, process and place are considered in an expanded forum.
Preparation phase:
-study of alternative places of education and the preparation of journals that compile the sites, programmes and central qualities of these open and more flexible schools.
-preparation of glossaries of learning.
-preparation of atlas of the HIL building and of possible non-central sites for the future department of architecture.
Elaboration phase:
-development of specific design proposals that incorporate new programmes and ideas of learning for the new department of architecture.
Diploma, FS 2026, ETH Zürich
Chair Caruso
Emilie Appercé, Tibor Bielicky, Adam Caruso
Newrope
Ellena Ehrl, Freek Persyn
Lecture MCBA Lausanne
What is it worth?
October 1, 2025, 18:30
Lycée Hôtelier de Lille, Caruso St John Architects 2011–2016
Adam Caruso
Lecture for the Conférence Espaces communs
Musée Cantonale des Beaux-Arts Lausanne, Auditorium
More information & registration
The Village
Diploma FS 2025
Remoteness and Identity
Diploma HS 2024
Switzerland at a Crossroads
Monica Ciobotar
HS 2024 Switzerland at a Crossroads
IEA Lecture
All buildings are beautiful
October 9, 2024, 18:00
Adam Caruso
IEA Lecture Series HS 24
Practice What We Teach?
ETH Zürich, ONA, Fokushalle
A New Museum
Laura Di Nardo / Laura Schneider
FS 2024 A New Museum
Denner Schwamendingen, Group Material
Diploma FS 2024
By investigating the history of Glarus it became apparent that the textile industry played a significant role. Described as a pioneer work, the heroic and linear narrative still plays an important role in the canton’s identity today. Inspired by Ursula Le Guin’s concept of the carrier bag, a collection of stories was gathered describing that the Glarnerland isn’t only about the heydays of the industry but also about the possibilities it left behind.
One of the stories to be told is explained by Peter Jenny. In an interview, he mentioned that besides the industrial past, the Glarnerland has the quality of serving as a niche and by that attracting artists and other people involved in the cultural scene. After the textile industry came to a halt at the end of the 20th century, space became available that could be exploited. Examples such as the Palais Jaune in Diesbach in the 1980s or the still active Hollenstein in Ennenda illustrate what Jenny was referring to. Both places offered space to communities of people involved in the cultural sector where they could create their own environment, hidden from the rush in the cities.
Also, the Hänggiturm shows a straightforward way of representing the history of the textile past. Reapplying Ursula Le Guin’s method to analyze the building it became clear that the seemingly perfect appearance of the ensemble has more stories
to tell. The old, original factory building was supposed to serve as a base for the relocated Hänggiturm. As the building was a bit too narrow, it was demolished in the 90s and replaced by a new building with the same appearance. One irregularity that illustrates the orchestration is the large basement with an underground garage.
How does this “Niche” manifest itself?
The relocation of the post office that is currently inhabiting the base of the building offers the possibility to introduce a new use. As an extension of the existing cultural network, a residency for artists is implemented into the partly vacated building. Equipped with small appartements it allows the guests to inhabit the building for any length of time. The floor slab to the basement is cut open to unveil the orchestration and to provide the basement with natural light. The space once used as a garage is reframed into a Werkhalle, ready to be appropriated by the inhabitants, starting with a ceramic workshop in which tiles are produced which are installed on the upper floors. Inspired by the structure of the Chelsea Hotel
the ground floor is transformed into the new Lobby of the building. Together with the existing Anna Göldi Museum in the Hänggiturm, the lobby mediates between the public and the newly implemented internal world. The bar, reception, and collective kitchen on one hand welcome the public of Ennenda into the building and on the other hand, serve as an extension of the inhabitants’ living rooms, enabling a community to form around the residence. The seven existing bathrooms on the upper floors allow the plans to be altered into seven smaller apartments. Equipped with a bed and a small kitchen they provide a basis for the individual occupation of the inhabitants.
Redesigning Museums
Diploma HS 2023
Re (Reframe, Rearrange, Repeat)
Chloe Szwarc / Lukas Burger
FS 2023 Re (Reframe, Rearrange, Repeat)
Diploma FS 2023
Ornament of Globalisation
Anastasia Zharova
FS 2023 Labour Reframed
Reframe, Rearrange, Repeat
Diploma HS 2022
Re form
Lea Muttoni
FS 2022 Re form
Reformierte Kirche Wipkingen
IEA Lecture
You cannot take risks without failing
March 15, 2022, 18:00
Adam Caruso
IEA Lecture Series FS 22
One Building, Failure Is an Option
ETH Zürich, ONA, Fokushalle
Interim, forever
Emanuel Pulfer / Ann Sophia Kirchhofer
HS 2021 Interim, forever
Zitrone Dietikon
Diploma HS 2021
Referring to Lucius Burckhardts ‘Der kleinstmögliche Eingriff’ written in the 1980s, the project aims to de-objectify the Marriott Hotel that is located at the most central locations, yet remains mostly unnoticed by the cities’ inhabitants. In the sense of Burckhardts aesthetic survey, the project follows six paths that lead up to the many entrances of the building and proposed the smallest possible interventions to initiate transformation. By promoting a change in perception of the building and its relationship to the urban landscape the buildings strength of accessibility can once again be valued. It could then become a space for the public that ultimately prevents it from demolition.
Women Writing Architecture
Website Launch
June 30, 2021
The website womenwritingarchitecture.org was launched this week on June 30th. The new resource, an annotated bibliography of writing by women about architecture, is now publicly accessible to discover, browse and contribute to.
Making Plans for Living Together
Re-working the mosaic questions the arbitrariness imposed by the cadastre and sug-gests to the inhabitants of the neighborhood a new appreciation of their surrounding landscape. A series of architectural and landscape interventions revisit the fragmen-tation caused by the urban mosaic as it is today and thus draw a constellation along the Triemlifussweg highly beneficial for biodiversity. Their complementarity offers residents a sustainable infrastructure that allows them to feel native to their place and thus reinforces the feeling of belonging to a community.
Nora Schibli / Yagmur Kültür
FS 2021 Making Plans for Living Together, Zürich
Melliodora, Hepburn Permaculture Gardens
Making Plans for Living
Craneway Event, Tacita Dean
Re-Use Ciba
The project tries to question our approach to saving energy in the built sector. While concepts such as the 2000 Watt society are ambitious in their scope, real life implementations often seem to result in dull and lifeless consequences for everyday life. Instead of imposing ever more rules and regulations, the proposal seeks the pleasures of an alternative lifestyle inspired by a more sensible approach to energy consumption.
What is it worth?
Welche Heimat?
Jonas Sundberg
HS 2019 Welche Heimat?
Society and the Image
Public Building
Jasper Buchmann-Ebbert / Sabrina Waibel
FS 2019 Public Building, Zürich
La Maison du Peuple, Jean Prouvé
Clichy, 1938
Hidden Interiors
Anna Maclver-Ek / Alexandre Lebet
HS 2018 Hidden Interiors, Zürich
House VI, Peter Eisenman
Connecticut, 1975
The Ideal City
Giuseppe Allegri / Laura Bruder
FS 2018 The Ideal City, Spreitenbach
Renaissance City, Piero della Francesca
Urbino, 1480
Describing Beauty
Stephan Mauser
HS 2017 Describing Beauty, Zürich
Plum Blossom, Suzuki Harunobu
Japan, 1768
Structure and Society
Agnieszka Latak / Daniel Pickering
FS 2017 Structure and Society, Zürich
Centraal Beheer, Herman Hertzberger
Apeldoorn, 1972
Social Structure
David Vincent / Maxime Zaugg
HS 2016 Social Structure, Graubünden
Geology & Landscape
Graubünden
