Project: Various Typologies

The studio will investigate two prominent sites right at the transition of the former medieval fortification wall and the historical core of Zurich. The sites have a similar historical profile acting as the gateway to the early concentric city extension in the mid-19th century. Adjacent to the lyric city garden of the Schanzengraben, the old botanic garden and the River Sihl, the broader context was the first high-rise plan within Zurich’s city centre. With the development of the public garden, a sequence of high rise buildings was realised and today they form one of the rare combinations of 19th-century block structures and free-standing higher buildings from the early 1960s. The studio bases its reflection on urban renewal on the hypothesis of removing the present, monstrous building of the former stock market.