10 Snapshots of Architectural Education Architecture at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology from 1855 to 1987

Translations Reto Geiser

10 snapshots of Architectural Education Architecture at the Swiss federal institute of Technology from 1855 to 1987

Reto Geiser course of studies was limited to three 1915 Abstract years, the first two of which were mainly When Karl Moser (1860–1936) was Architecture is an inherent part of every dedicated to mathematical-technical appointed to ETH Zurich in 1915, he society. It is an indicator of political, matters, while only the last year was could look back to a successful career economic, technological and cultural dedicated to architectural design. as a practicing architect. From 1888 conditions, as well as their changes. The Semper, wished to extend the studies in to 1915, he collaborated with Robert built environment is constantly changing, order to give design a more dominant Curjel in Karlsruhe, Germany, building generating new paradoxes, and the role of role. He consequently structured the a great number of churches, a train the architect, too, is subject to continuous curriculum so that propaedeutic subjects station, and, most notably, the main building of Zurich’s University, as well re-formation. Along ten photographic would be taught in the morning, and lectures on architectural history would as the Zurich Kunsthaus [Museum of snapshots found in institutional and take place in the evenings, liberating Fine Arts]. Trained in Semper’s tradition, private archives, and with the support of the core of the day for actual studio Moser was about to form a whole extended captions, this visual essay aims work including perspectival drawing, generation of Swiss architects, when he to provide an incomplete overview of the figuration, landscape design, and the began to teach during a time of national multifaceted teaching environment at creation of ornamentation. The projects isolation due to the First World War. the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology developed in Semper’s atelier were Interested in the fundamental principals (ETH) in Zurich, from the mid nineteenth to mostly based on current architectural of architecture, independent of a given the late twentieth century. The presented competitions or on actual commissions, formal vocabulary, the architect tried snapshots of architectural educators and taking advantage of the student work to introduce his pupils to the roots their respective design studios reveal force. During Semper’s tenure, the of architectural culture. The study of treatises of the Renaissance, and their a variety of design methodologies and architecture faculty developed to a school of more than fifty students, and further development in a classicist style didactic structures that shaped the school with his design for the main building was a central aspect of his curriculum. over the course of more than a century. of the ETH, he managed to impose Next to the humanistic studies and what he considered the ideal plan for design, construction processes and the 1855 an architecture school to the entire actual structure and materialization Throughout his teaching career, institution. The picture shows the class of buildings were fundamental parts Gottfried Semper (1803–1879) was on one of the yearly field trips within of Moser’s curriculum. Already in his involved in the development of curricula. Switzerland, Semper’s preference being lifetime, Moser was considered to be part In Dresden, London, and finally at the the south, bordering Italy. of the “fathers of modern architecture,” newly founded “Polytechnikum” in Bibliography: an attribution he reached through Zurich, he obtained a leading role in his abstract, but never fundamental the reorganization and formation of Bruno Maurer, “Lehrgebäude – Gottfried Semper am Zür- cher Polytechnikum,” in: Winfried Nerdinger and Werner teaching pedagogy, which provided the the respective architecture schools. Not Oechslin (eds.), Gottfried Semper, 1803–1879: Architektur foundation for the Swiss contribution to only was Semper ETH’s first dean of the und Wissenschaft, Zürich/München: gta Verlag/Prestel, 2003, p. 306–313. the architecture culture of the 1920s. In architecture faculty, he was also its first this role, Karl Moser served as the first and only professor with a student body Note: Martin Tschanz is currently working on a detailed history of the Architecture Faculty at ETH Zurich. President of the Congrès Internationaux of nine pupils in 1855. At the time, the Image Credit: gta Archives / ETH Zürich d’Architecture Moderne (CIAM).

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Bibliography: pharmaceutical company Hoffmann- his classes with a systematic program Ernst Strebel, “Die Architekten Curjel & Moser und die La Roche with commissions both in or a particular methodological offizielle SchweizerA rchitekturlehre um 1900,” in: Uri Ro- bert Kaufmann (ed.), Die Schweiz und der Deutsche Süd- Switzerland and abroad. An excursion framework, nor did he encourage a westen, Ostfildern: Jan Thorbecke Verlag, 2006, p. 123–139. to Belgium and the United Kingdom in critical discourse, as Werner Moser There is an ongoing research project at the Institute for order to visit his construction sites, and later observed. Structure, material, and the History and Theory of Architecture at ETH Zèrich, dealing with the oeuvre of Karl Moser. to study recent buildings was a positive the “aesthetic laws of harmony and synergy of this dual appointment. The proportion” were the guiding principles Image Credit: photograph shows Salvisberg and his of Hofmann’s teaching. He repeatedly gta Archives / ETH Zürich students from the ETH with Henry van stressed the importance of the de Velde, their local guide. individual student’s “talent and passion,” 1929 Bibliography: and his belief that architecture was a When the call of ETH Zurich reached form of art—hence the German “Bau- Otto Rudolf Salvisberg (1882–1940) in Claude Lichtenstein, Martin Steinmann (eds.), O. R. Salvis- berg. Die andere Moderne, Zürich: gta Verlag, 1995. Kunst”—that could not be taught like 1928, he was successfully practicing other subjects. Hofmann also continued in Berlin. It took some effort from the Image Credit: gta Archives / ETH Zürich the school’s tradition of excursions, president of the school to convince the even if at first restricted to the borders well-known practitioner to give up his 1941 of Switzerland due to the geopolitical office in order to teach. Salvisberg was The architect Hans Hofmann (1897– situation. among the first to argue that young 1957) reached national fame through Bibliography: architects needed to be prepared to his central role as chief architect of Hans Hofmann, “Die Abteilung für Architektur an der enter architectural practice and thus the Swiss National Exhibition in 1939. Eidgenössichen Technischen Hochschule in Zürich, Sechs- demanded the school to assure him tes und Siebtes Semester”, in: Das Werk, vol. 40, 1953, p. This proved a decisive moment in the 50–56. commissions, so theory and practice country’s architectural development Image Credit: could further each other. His lectures negotiating between the radicalism of gta Archives / ETH Zürich were organized according to building the vanguard and a popular appeal to typologies, such as apartment buildings, tradition. When Salvisberg unexpectedly 1954 banks, hotels, cinemas, or larger passed away, the appointment of The Swiss art historian and architecture residential compounds. Even though Hofmann seemed like an obvious step, critic Sigfried Giedion (1888–1968) Salvisberg was critical about the most given that he had received an honorary was surprisingly never fully tenured recent achievements of Le Corbusier or doctorate from the University of Zurich, at ETH Zurich. After returning from Frank Lloyd Wright a sharp dialectic and that he was extremely recognized his successful stay in the United was not part of his approach to throughout Switzerland. Beginning States as Harvard’s Charles Eliot teaching. Rather than disseminating in 1941, Hofmann taught for sixteen Norton Professor in Poetry and the ideologies, demanding students to copy years within the architecture faculty, subsequent publication of Space, particular building styles, he practiced mainly advanced students and thesis Time and Architecture (1941), Giedion tolerance and believed in the didactic students. Together with William Dunkel blatantly suggested to the President of system of trial and error. The openness and Friedrich Hess, he formed the core the ETH to be hired as a professor at of Salvisberg’s approach was expressed of a rather conservative architecture the polytechnic’s architecture faculty through his presence in the design school, and eventually acted as its in 1946. While there was hardly doubt studio, where he engaged with the dean. The group around Hans Hofmann about his qualifications—even if he design problem of every single student was tied to the tradition of the master never obtained a venia legendi [right to during extended desk critiques. Next to class and focused on a studio-based teach], which was still a precondition his intense teaching activities, Salvisberg exchange between professors and in Europe at the time—both the became the corporate architect of the students. The architect hardly structured

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architecture faculty and the department 1958 introduced at the time. Moser, a of humanities were unwilling to grant Before engaging with the education dedicated educator, had to realize that him a position. After long and grueling of architects, Werner M. Moser it increasingly became more difficult negotiations with the board of the (1896–1970) aimed to reform the to stretch between his duties in the ETH, Giedion was eventually allowed didactic structure on a high-school academy and his collaborative practice to teach a weekly one-hour seminar level, propagating “Action Teaching,” with Max Ernst Haefeli and Rudolf at the architecture school, against the a practice oriented methodology that Steiger (known as HMS) and eventually will of the other faculty. When CIAM’s would foster the esthetic education of resigned from teaching in 1963. president Josep Lluís Sert was appointed the general public. In 1951, Moser was Bibliography: as dean of Harvard’s Graduate School called in by the president of the board Bruno Maurer, “’Die Revolution hat nicht stattgefunden of Design in 1954, another door opened of ETH, Hans Pallmann, to consult in der Erziehung’: Werner M. Moser und die ‘Erziehung for Giedion. The secretary general of the zur Architektur’,” in: Sonja Hildebrand, Bruno Maurer and him in his intentions to restructure Werner Oechslin (eds.), Haefeli Moser Steiger: Die Archi- organization was called to reintroduce a the department of architecture. The tekten der Schweizer Moderne, Zürich: gta Verlag, 2007, history course, and to participate in the school was in desperate need for p. 117–141. creation of an Urban Design program in an educational reform when Hans Image Credit: collaboration with Jaqueline Tyrwhitt, Hofmann, William Dunkel, and gta Archives / ETH Zürich Eduard Sekler and Sert himself. From Friedrich Hess, the triumvirate that had this moment on, Giedion was alternately dominated the faculty for more than a 1960 teaching in the United States and in decade, eventually retired. Moser was Bernhard Hoesli (1923–1984) was Switzerland. While close colleagues concerned with three major aspects appointed to ETH in 1960 to teach the surrounded him at Harvard, the related to architectural education: the foundational design course [Grundkurs], environment at ETH was less supportive. position of Swiss architecture worldwide, when the department of architecture Marginalized within the faculty, he the relationship between professors was about to witness a significant eventually turned into the spirtus rector and students, and the qualifications generational change. Hoesli’s journey of a selected group of students, which of the faculty. The issues outlined by as an architectural educator began in he considered rather as colleagues Karl Moser’s son set the basis for the 1954, when he joined the young and and equal interlocutors than pupils. changes that were long awaited not only energetic faculty at the University Giedion’s seminars on architecture and by a small circle within the architecture of Texas at Austin. The group that urbanism had a clear international faculty, but also by the two leading eventually became known as the “Texas focus, and many of the themes associations of Swiss architects. Moser Rangers” included the architectural discussed were also on the agenda of was eventually hired as a professor, historian and theorist Colin Rowe, the the postwar conferences of the Congrès together with a group of other younger painters Robert Slutzky and Lee Hirsche, Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne faculty that practically doubled the and the architect John Hejduk. Over the (CIAM). number of design studios at the school. course of only five years, they managed Bibliography: As Moser suggested in his negotiations to establish a didactic experiment Dorothee Huber (ed.), Sigfried Giedion: Wege in die with the president, the course of studies guided by the principles of transparency Öffentlichkeit, Zürich: Ammann Verlag, 1987. was extended to eight semesters, and collage. It was on the one hand The author is currently finalizing a dissertation on cultu- beginning with a foundational course, a profound reaction to the Bauhaus ral exchange in the work of Sigfried Giedion between 1938 and 1968. and concluding with a semester of approach that had become a widespread planning. From visiting professorships, model in the American academy due Image Credit: to an institute for urban and regional to its success at Harvard’s GSD, on the Courtesy of the Frances Loeb Library, Harvard Graduate School of Design planning to the first postgraduate other hand it aimed to abolish the last studies, many of the institutions decadent remnants of the long-lasting that seem so self-evident today were Beaux-Arts tradition. At the end of the

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1950s, Hoesli returned to Switzerland these developments, sociologist Lucius was disinterested, but the board of the equipped with the methodological and Burckhardt (1925–2003), editor-in-chief school was skeptical about Rossi’s role didactic tools that would also shape of the Swiss architecture journal Das during the student riots in Milan, where his teaching at the ETH. In his design Werk from 1962 to 1972, established an he taught at the time. As opposed to studio, Hoesli assigned daily exercises experimental studio called “Lehrcanapé” the apprehensions of the board of the that clearly outlined a design problem, [teaching couch] in 1970 with the aim to school, who considered Rossi to be a defined particular requirements, stated foster cross-disciplinary collaborations. communist, the architect taught “solid the learning objectives, and provided the This three-year experiment, co-taught architecture,” based on an archaic methods and principles to be applied. between the sociologist and two practice of drawing. Rossi’s design The critical analysis and notation of colleagues from architecture, Rolf studio at ETH, which he taught from masterworks of modern architecture Gutmann (1926–2002) and Rainer 1972 to 1974 encouraged his students— based on diagrams, interpretative Senn (1932–), placed a strong emphasis among them Jacques Herzog, Pierre de drawings, and conceptual models were on the socio-political and cultural Meuron, and Marcel Meili—to engage Hoesli’s preferred method to teach the dimensions of architecture and with contemporary society and culture interrelation of spatial, organizational, urbanism. Very much in the spirit of the in relation to the city. and formal aspects of architecture. time, students were asked to frame their This led to Rossi introducing the study Based on his American experiences, own design problem, which was tackled and design of housing as a vessel to and in opposition to a majority of his according to a given methodology. From study these contextual factors. The colleagues, Hoesli fostered a studio a thorough socioeconomic analysis, architect confronted his students with atmosphere that diffused hierarchic to the absorption of political realities a threefold design methodology based structures, encouraged a more personal of planning, to the enhancement of on analysis, idea, and the actual design exchange between faculty and students, cognition, to methods of communication process, steps that he considered a and by means of frequent informal pin- and documentation, Burckhardt logical development of architectural ups and reviews, he facilitated a healthy encouraged his students to capture design. The systematic analysis of the level of critique and an intensified the challenges of contemporary city—also described as the “reading discourse. society—and thus architecture—in a of the city”—which became a central

Bibliography: larger coherence. Through his sharp aspect of Rossi’s design pedagogy, Jürg Jansen, Hansueli Jörg, Luca Maraini, Hanspeter Stöc- observations and critical analyses, providing students with a rational kli (eds.), Teaching Architecture: Bernhard Hoesli at the Burckhardt not only offered an foundation for the design process, was Department of Architecture at the ETH Zurich, Zürich: alternative to the predominant studios introduced in the 1950s in Venice by Institute for the History and Theory of Architecture (gta), 1989. offered at the ETH, but fundamentally Italian architect Saverio Muratori. Alexander Caragonne, The Texas Rangers: Notes from an influenced the teaching practice Based on typo-morphological principles, Architectural Underground, Cambridge: The MIT Press, of planning, and has offered a new Rossi and his students prepared a 1995. understanding of the architect’s role in meticulously detailed drawing of Image Credit: the contemporary urban environment. the street level of Zurich’s core town,

Courtesy of Luca Maraini, Baden Bibliography: negotiating the scales of an individual Silvan Blumenthal, Das Lehrcanape der ETH, Basel: Stand- building and that of the city. 1971 punkte, 2009 (forthcoming). Bibliography: Just a month after, and most likely Image Credit: Aldo Rossi, Vorlesungen, Aufsätze, Entwürfe, Zürich: Ver- lag der Fachvereine, 1974. triggered by the 1968 student riots in Courtesy of Annemarie Burckhardt, Basel Paris, students and lecturers at ETH Filip Geerts, “The City as Architecture: Aldo Rossi’s Didac- tic Legacy,” in: Reto Geiser (ed.), Explorations: Teaching, Zurich got together to discuss overdue 1972 Design, Research, Basel: Birkhäuser, 2008, p. 134–135. changes in the curriculum and the future Bringing Aldo Rossi (1931–1997) to the Pia Simmendinger is currently preparing a dissertation on role of the architect. A consequence of ETH was not an easy task. Not that he Aldo Rossi’s teaching activities at ETH.

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Image Credit: Bibliography: gta Archives / ETH Zürich Miroslav Sik, Analoge Architektur, Zürich: Edition T. Boga, 1987. 1987 Image Credit: An exhibition entitled “Analoge Reto Geiser Architekur” [analogous architecture] held at a small architecture gallery in Zurich officially launched a new architectural tendency that had emerged four years previously under the auspices of Miroslav Sik (1953–) at the chair of Fabio Reinhart (1942) at ETH Zurich. It was the first serious consolidation of forces, the first “school” within the architecture department since Aldo Rossi’s departure in the mid 1970s. A counter reaction to the radical experiment of modernist abstraction, “analogous architecture” was meant to synthesize common realities. Longing for “architectural realities,” this confirmed group aimed to create atmospheres, celebrating and intensifying existing structures by means of large-scale hand colored renderings, dominated by dull, yet soft shades, depicting organic materials such as wood and stone instead of synthetic materials like concrete and steel. A reaction to the predominant tendencies of the time, the “analogous group” rejected the citation of particular building styles, skillfully reassembling and synthesizing intelligible and ostensive forms of existing structures to new “atmospheric,” and quite often rather monumental designs. As the show, based on meticulously detailed models, over size renderings, and a prosaic set of drawings, suggests, students were encouraged to work in an environment that would approach the reality of architectural practice as close as possible.