The ETH Architecture department in Hochhaus zur Palme, five minutes from Paradeplatz Zürich presents a perspective on the cultural and cognitive flattening of human networked recollections through various spatial and emotional expressions. (Ill-Studio, ADDPMP) While zapping was once just a way of watching TV – in today’s age, the abundance of virtually anything expands zapping even to education. This atmosphere penetrated with disorder, where every time people visit this place, they could encounter new programs, as if from a strange planet, speaking another language, has a certain play in it, and it is precisely this play that provokes invention. (Serres, Thumbelina, the Culture and Technology of Millenials)
It is one of the first towers in Zürich, built in 1964, with a height of 50 meters divided into 13 floors – one of the first inevitable steps towards a denser city. But a tower does not come with density automatically. People have to make an effort to establish a public density.(Hovestadt, On digital Architecture) And while the Hochhaus zur Palme, in the name of the car-based city, made the second floor accessible via a double-helix ramp, this building mirrors the proportions of musical harmony; a demand which became universally accepted on Vitruvius' authority, and a Renaissance tradition, that Häfeli, Moser, Steiger – the architects of this Tower – continued, putting it into a cosmic relation between human and space. (Wittkower, Architectural Principles in the Age of Humanism)
Perhaps, a rather Baroque way of introducing new harmonies will help develop this tower from its static harmony to a dynamic spectacle, more suited to shaping a cast of what the future architecture school might resemble in form of a shared fantasy. (Ill-Studio, ADDPMP)
For this, an album is included in this project in parallel with the design. The parallels are of a varied nature: synthesized translation of educational concept, delay in new rhythms according to the new proportions of the design, harmonies embodying the new form of the building border, sounds depicting the materiality – but just listen to it via QR or this link: Soundcloud.Alexander.Bruderer.Mondsteinsonate.com