Remoteness and Identity
Remoteness and Identity - Final Review
December 17, 2024
Tuesday, December 17th, Final Review, ETH Zürich, ONA E30, 08:00 – 19:00
Guests: Myriam Marti, Nancy Ottaviano, Zeno Vogel
Remoteness and Identity - Studio Review 2
November 20, 2024
Noëlle Hutmacher, Elon Rachamin, Anna-Lena Frey
Wednesday, November 20th, Studio Review, ETH Zürich, ONA E30, 09:00 – 18:00
Guests: Anna Puigjaner, Sol Pérez Martínez, Matthew Phillips
Remoteness and Identity - Studio Review 1
October 16, 2024
Wednesday, October 16th, Studio Review, ETH Zürich, ONA E30, 09:30 – 17:00
Guest: Sophie von Einsiedel
Remoteness and Identity
Introduction 17 September 2024, 10am
Klausenpass, August 2024
You don’t just ‘go for a walk’ in Canada. Setting off north from Montreal, the last settlements soon recede into the distance and eventually you reach the North Pole; it is a harsh one-way journey. Similarly, a trip north in Britain ultimately encounters, dead-end, the North Sea. Switzerland, on the other hand, is in the middle of the European landmass. Traversing even the most exposed alpine pass leads, before too long, to inhabited lands. The image and the instrumentalising of mountains, alps, and passes lies at the root of Switzerland’s identity, economy and history, for the land has long been a crossroads for goods and people. Before too long, those who choose to stay, or who are left behind, become Swiss.
Lately, Swiss architecture has become enmeshed in densifying cities and suburbs, making concentrated centres, with little attention being paid to its counterpart: the condition of remoteness. With the climate crisis comes a reassessment of many aspects of Swiss land management and construction, including agriculture and tourism, and these important contributors to the image and the economy of Switzerland play out amongst the mountains.
This semester we will re-evaluate the qualities and uses of remoteness at the Klausenpass, where, at 1948 metres, the cantons of Glarus and Uri overlap. We will study and map the social and the historical, getting to know the walkers, bikers, soldiers, and maintenance crews that are its visitors today. Informed by cartographies, handbooks, and chronicles we will go on to design intimate settlements – newly constructed places that with buildings and gardens provide a space for contemplation, assembly, and quiet industry in this special place at the top of Europe.
Introduction: 17 September 2024, 10:00 am, Klausenpass, Details to be announced
Construction and writing as integrated disciplines are included in this course
HS 2024, ETH Zürich, Studio Caruso
Emilie Appercé, Lucia Bernini, Tibor Bielicky, Adam Caruso, Yosuke Nakamoto
Diploma FS 2025
Un-City
Diesbach, autumn 2024
For a long time, the city has been a magnet for money, for jobs, for culture and for learning. This concentration of everything leads to an inexhaustible demand for resources. There will never be enough land to exploit for profit or adequate housing for the population, a condition of scarcity that is fundamental to late capitalism. This semester we will work in places away from the city where the space exists for more balanced ideas of society to bloom. With the coming of the snow, we descend from the Klausen pass, from 2000 to 600 metres. Linthal, Rüti and Diesbach are villages at the head of the valley, each has clusters of houses and outbuildings, substantial mill complexes with their own hydro power station on the river Linth and abundant agricultural lands. Many of these structures are underused, but in their rich spatial diversity they are a fertile ground waiting for new social programmes. The history of the Glarus Valley is one of invention, industry and agriculture. The human and material resources of the valley obviously still exist, and if the already existing cooperatives and associations could become more interconnected, new energies would emerge from these new networks. This semester we will engage with the contemporary life of Glarus. Observing and recording the social and physical fabric of the villages we will meet as many people as we can, to benefit from their knowledge and to share some of their ambitions. Following themes that will include hydro power, food, industry, health and learning, we will deploy strategies of adaptation and improvisation, in the short and the long term, to develop new kinds of incomplete utopias. Existing and new construction, landscapes and buildings, will transform and consolidate the qualities and constellations that we have found and begin to reveal what the future life of the un-city could be.
Diploma, FS 2025, ETH Zürich
Chair Caruso
Emilie Appercé, Adam Caruso
Chair of Being Alive
Stefan Breit, Teresa Galí-Izard
Baumeister: Selected by Caruso St John
B11 Baumeister: Selected by Caruso St John
Curated Issue November 2024
For the November 2024 issue of the magazine Caruso St John have selected a Baumeister Reader, a series of texts that touch on different aspects of the challenges that lie ahead for the practice of architecture.
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
Diploma HS 2024
Switzerland at a crossroads
Inferno (detail), chalk on masonite, 242 × 1219 cm, Tacita Dean, 2019
Control of the mountain passes is a historic source of Switzerland’s wealth and a powerful part of its national mythology. The passes were like switches that enabled individual cantons, and the whole federation, to be transformed from a fortress in the middle of Europe to a crossroads and marketplace at its centre. The passes were not only conduits for goods and services but have historically provided routes of migration between cantons and from beyond. Today with the main business of exchange displaced to tunnels deep within the mountains, the passes have become liberated, becoming places that encourage the informal, the peripheral and the uneconomic. It might not be easy to gain a foothold at 2000 metres, but there is a lot of air, stone, and sky there. With rising temperatures and receding icefields, the passes will become more accessible and habitable. In response to the diploma’s overarching question of ‘how will we live together’, our focus will be on those places away from the density of the centre that are necessary for society to be sustained and at ease with itself. The semester will start with a series of close readings of the living systems such as geology, vegetation, climate, and water of the Klausenpass, the things that make the atmosphere of the place and the material for future interventions. At 1948 metres the pass is where the cantons of Glarus and Uri meet. We will study and map the social and the historical, finding out who inhabited the pass before the walkers, bikers, soldiers, and maintenance crews that one meets there today. With cartographies, handbooks, and chronicles we will go on to design intimate settlements, newly constructed places that with buildings and gardens provide a space for contemplation, assembly, and quiet industry in this special place at the top of Europe.
Diploma, HS 2024, ETH Zürich
Chair Caruso
Emilie Appercé, Adam Caruso
Chair of Being Alive
Stefan Breit, Teresa Galí-Izard
A New Museum
Ennenda is a place with a rich history that continues to shape its identity today. The intensive textile industry has left an indelible mark, contributing significantly to Ennenda's character. The architecture and facades of Ennenda stand as testament to that era, embodying both industrial prowess and wealth.
A notable historical landmark is the hanging tower on the Trümpi site. Despite being a reconstructed version of the original, this building still defines Ennenda's landscape, evoking memories of fluttering cloths from a bygone era.
The museum encapsulates this very essence of Ennenda, represented through its facades, placing them in the context of both historical and contemporary narratives. Just as vibrant prints from around the world were once replicated for textile printing, the exhibition mirrors these facades, faithfully reproducing selected elements.
These replicated facades serve as backdrops, layered with stories from the past and present. The building already hosts various functions, and the exhibition further enlivens the area by doubling as a part-time theater where these stories come to life. It creates moments where diverse people and perspectives converge, casting familiar scenes in a new light.
The set pieces are a blend of timber frames and three-dimensional textile facades.
As a ghostly presence, these facades shift between being a backdrop for dynamic projections and standing as delicate shadows that evoke the essence of Ennenda’s past. They create an ethereal atmosphere, showing the layers of history and capture the ephemeral nature of memory, reflecting how the town's history continues to influence its present.
Laura Di Nardo / Laura Schneider
FS 2024 A New Museum
Group Material
Redesigning Museums
Re (Reframe, Rearrange, Repeat)
The aim of the KW Walzmühle project is to restore the existing buil- dings of the Alpenbrückli complex and introduce new infras- tructures in order to re-activate the site and its reach onto the surrounding area and its population. The implementation of a bold communal hall linking the former grain silo and the old mill is meant to generate an intermediate space that could be used by the new users of the complex as well as the daily passers-by from the region. The site is in close proximity to the centre of Glarus as well as the train tracks and stands on a pedestrian path that sees a daily flux of users crossing the old mill factory thus making it a place with a high potential for social & commercial gatherings as well as a distribution node for locally produced goods.
The new site would offer a new commercial hub for the city of Glarus, allowing local producers & suppliers to gather in a centralised environment where each could benefit from the experience and networks of each other. The goal is to introduce a variety of co- working spaces, showrooms as well as storage facilities that could enable national and international investors and distributors to come and meet in person with a broader range of small to me- dium-scale producers in order to facilitate the export of locally produced goods across the rest of the country as well as beyond our borders. The importance of the local economy and locally sourced productions is becoming a critical part of fair trade poli- cies as well as the development of suburban regions that develop products further away from economic centres such as Zurich.
Diverse state entities and private companies have already taken the challenge to boost the economy of smaller companies and expand the reach of new start-ups and producers outwards of the valley in order to bring the region to a more competitive state in opposition to the country‘s leading food distributors like Coop and Migros. These mega companies control the majority of Switzerland‘s food market and thus possess an essential influen- ce on the prices and distribution networks of goods across the country making it very difficult for smaller companies to maintain a sustainable business and push their products onto the Swiss market on their own.
Burak Kaya / Martino Gaia
FS 2023 Re (Reframe, Rearrange, Repeat)
Reframe, Rearrange, Repeat
Grenzsanität Brig – A museum at times
Lucia Bernini / Jonas Heller
HS 2022 Reframe, Rearrange, Repeat
The building of the Grenzsanität, designed by Heidi and Peter Wenger, is located at the train station in Brig. It was built in 1957 for the purpose of sanitary examinations of migrant workers passing the Swiss-Italian border. These examinations consisted of screenings for infectious diseases such as Tuberculosis by means of blood collection and radiologic exams. They were mandatory for people immigrating into Switzerland in order to obtain a work and residence permit.
The Grenzsanität is the architectural representation of the restrictive immigration policies established in the post-war years. Terms such as Saisonnierstatut, Überfremdung, Schwarzenbach-Initiative, or Grenzsanitätsdienst did not only shape the discourse about migration in those years, but affected the lives of thousands of people and families. The Grenzsanität is a Denkmal by means of which their story can be told.
Airas Sánchez Keller / Robin Staubli
HS 2022 Reframe, Rearrange, Repeat
Re form
Proposition for remodelling the protestant church in Hirzenbach, questioning the projected replacement building.
Julius Schwartz / Xingyu He
FS 2022 Re form
Kirche auf der Egg
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
Chair of Architecture and Construction
Adam Caruso
The project is presented as a folder, a collection of stories, architectural details, and material understanding, to provide information about the handling of the building and propose a resource for an ongoing transformation. The pages and stories can be rearranged, offering multiple readings and interpretations of the building, architectural fragments, and the interventions.
The research project engages with the hotel building known as Marriott that opened in the 1970s as an autonomous object in the city center of Zurich.The research unfolded stories about the building from contact with the original architect of the building, the interior designers, and the Head of Engineering who has worked in the building for over 25 years. Since the opening of the hotel, the idea of a «complete work of art» has been defiant. Over the years, the building underwent numerous modifications and transformations, revealing mutable versions of itself to keep up with the changing trends in hotel architecture.The generic new interiors have alienated the building’s interior from its shell. Each trend lasts for a generation and is custom- made for international hotel guests.The real users of the building, the workers, are thereby overlooked.The spatial separation between the front and back of the house is disproportionate.
The light touch aims to transform unused or historically interesting spaces in the hotel by critically reframing the existing layers and instrumentalising what is there.The actions are planned following the skill and expertise of the Engineering Team members of Marriott who have been in charge of every change ever made. Each space is appropriated to a new programme to tell the stories I encountered and reveal (im)material values that the building holds. Old, intermediate, and new layers create new atmospheres that are characterful to reconnect the hotel to its users and stay relevant in the future.
Projekt Interim Waldhaus
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
This proposal explores an alternative type of tenure that works collectively with tenants and wildlife coexisting, equally participating in the maintenance of the soil we cultivate, the air we breath, biodiversity and the beauty of our walks.
This project will focus on one of the buildings Im Strähler and how its infrastructures and the landscape along the Triemlifussweg are adapted and renovated to suit this new form of housing.
Lucia Giacobbi / Cristina Urzola
FS 2021 Making Plans for Living Together, Zürich
Monte Verità
Making Plans for Living
Gionata Buzzi
HS 2020 Making Plans for Living
Ansgar Stadler / Philip Stöckler
HS 2020 Making Plans for Living, Zürich
Ragamala, Indian Miniatures
Live: What is Next?
Seminar week 19–23 October 2020
A few semesters ago the studio tentatively made moves towards modernism. The evident failure of architecture to address the imbalance of contemporary life provided the motivation to look again at the more ideological and programmatic promises of modernism, particularly the second wave of the 60s and 70s, whose discourses were broadened to encompass themes of gender, the legacies of empire and the growing imbalances in our environment. The consumer driven economy and its insatiable consumption of precious resources is not sustainable, and the desires it claims to fill can never be satisfied. We need to shift our attention to things that give us purpose and happiness. What should we be doing, and how can we have fulfilling lives?
From our new home in Zürich Oerlikon we will meet and debate, both in person and on Zoom, a wide range of figures who are challenging the status quo of technique, economics and politics. We will both declare our existence to the wider world and also call for participation from beyond the limits of academia. The idea is that this intense week of research and outreach will supplement the ongoing themes of the studio, forming the basis of an interactive screen based journal and a special edition reader.
For the week we are collaborating with the Architecture Foundation, who is presenting and streaming the discussions throughout the week and who makes them accessible to rewatch on their YouTube channel.
HS 2020, ETH Zürich, Studio Caruso
Society and the Image
Anita Cantieni / Yves Merkofer
HS 2019 Society and the Image, Zürich
Download Booklet
PDF 53 MB
Public Building
Sanjana Roy / Eric Bonhote
FS 2019 Public Building, Zürich
Rusakov Workers’ Club, Konstantin Melnikow
Moskau, 1928
Hidden Interiors
Nora Molari / Tolga Uenver / Georg Weilenmann
HS 2018 Hidden Interiors, Zürich
Das Wohnzimmer, Heinrich Tessenow
1908
The Ideal City
Shen He / Wenjie Zheng
FS 2018 The Ideal City, Arbon
Linear City, Arturo Soria y Mata / Ivan Leonidov
Madrid / Magnitogorsk, 1897/1930
Describing Beauty
Roman Head
Italy, 100 BC
Structure and Society
Chao Wu / Reto Streit
FS 2017 Structure and Society, Zürich
Reference Models
Social Structure
Myriam Uzor / Raphael Hähni
HS 2016 Social Structure, Graubünden
Politics & Demographics
Graubünden
