Urban Codes and Urban Forms: The Case of Zurich / Call for papers

Colloquium
“Urban Codes and Urban Forms: The Case of Zurich”
USI Accademia di architettura Mendrisio and ETH Zurich

27 November 2024
ETH Center, Building CLA, Room J1

Call for papers

The impact that building codes have on urban and architectural development in contemporary Zurich seems obvious, but this reciprocity did not always exist. Cities and their building codes have grown and evolved simultaneously. Through codes (local, cantonal, and federal) there has been a desire from time to time to regulate the technical and economic aspects of the construction industry and to control urban growth, to define a precise aesthetic of urban space, and to ensure citizens’ safety. In this process, codes have been influenced by the existing built environment and have, in turn, influenced it from the architectural to the territorial scale.

This colloquium aims at investigating how rules and regulations have influenced the outlook and character of urban spaces in Zurich. We welcome contributions that depart both form the codes and from the built environment to expose their interdependencies.

We are interested in how regulation influenced the historical development of housing but also spaces of work (offices, factories, and workshops), education (schools, kindergartens, and universities), and leisure (parks and sport facilities). We also aim to explore the relationship between codes regulating mobility (automobility, public transport, railways) and the making of urban spaces.

Against this background we invite a broad variety of papers, which will be presented as 20 min talks on a colloquium held at ETH Hönggerberg on 27 November 2024. The colloquium aims to create an inventory of various ways to understand the interdependency of urban codes and urban forms in Zurich. It is our intention to gather the contributions to the colloquium in a book to be published at the end of 2025.

If you are interested, please submit an abstract (300 words and a short bio of 100 words) at this link by the 15th of September 2024. Papers can be presented in German or English. The main colloquium language will be English.

Scientific committee:

• Tom Avermaete (gta, Institute for the History and Theory of Architecture ETH Zurich)
• Irina Davidovici (gta Archives, ETH Zurich)
• Jonathan Sergison (Institute of Urban and Landscape Studies, USI)
• Giulia Scotto (Institute of Urban and Landscape Studies,USI),
• Sanna Kattenbeck (gta, Institute for the History and Theory of Architecture ETH Zurich)
• Miriam Stierle (Institute of Urban and Landscape Studies, USI).

Urban Codes and Urban Forms: The Case of Zurich

Opening

• 13.30 - 13.40 General introduction to the SNSF project by Jonathan Sergison
• 13:40 - 13.50 General introduction to the colloquium by Tom Avermaete

Session 1: Urban codes and urban forms

• 13:50 - 14.00 Overview of relevant topics and questions for discussion by Sanna Kattenbeck
• 14.00 - 14.20 Natalia Voroshilova and Giulio Galasso

Islands on the Border: The Urbanism of Arealüberbauung

• 14.20 - 14.40 Tanja Herdt

Revisiting Density: How CIAM functionalist ideas on living and recreation shaped Zurich’s first planning and zoning law and its postwar housing expansions

• 14.40 - 15.00 Cornel Lewicki

Anguish of Exactness: The influence of SIA 416 in shaping housing projects

• 15.00 - 15.20 Nitin Bathla and Norman Backhaus,

Nocturnal Imaginaries and urban atmospheres: From the City of Lights to Luminance degrowth

• 15.20 – 15.50 Panel discussion with all speakers, moderated by Sanna Kattenbeck

Break

Session 2: Codes and their limits

• 16.10 - 16.20 Overview of relevant topics and questions for discussion by Giulia Scotto
• 16.20 – 16.40 Henriette Lutz

Bahnareal, Treffpunkt der offenen Drogenszene und angesagter Freizeitort: Wie ein Rechtsstreit die jüngere Geschichte des Oberen Letten prägte

• 16.40 - 17.00 Stefan Kurath and Caspar Schärer

Building Laws Work. But How?

• 17.00 - 17.20 Tanguy Auffret Postel

City of Watts

• 17.20 - 17.50 Panel discussion with all speakers, moderated by Giulia Scotto

Closing

• 17.50 - 18.00 Summary of the colloquium by Tom Avermaete and Jonathan Sergison

Drinks