Places in Transition
Curators: Philipp Urech, Matthias Vollmer, Nadine Schütz
On view: 20 November 2025 to 24 January 2026
Venue: Baugeschichtliches Archiv der Stadt Zürich (BAZ), Neumarkt 4
The exhibition Places in Transition investigates urban transformation in Zürich across historical, contemporary, and speculative dimensions. It explores the interplay between cultural heritage and future-oriented development, shaped by collective imaginaries, technological innovation, shifting geopolitical conditions, and the global economy. In Zürich, successive transitions have redefined the spatial identity of the city. Medieval moats and artillery ramparts gave way to new streets; the construction of railway infrastructure remains a significant urban divider to this day; and environmental strategies, initially aimed at waste management, have evolved into a watercourse concept that is now revitalizing streams once channeled or culverted. As contemporary challenges such as urban heat islands and biodiversity loss gain urgency, living infrastructures are increasingly recognized as vital to enhancing the quality and character of the places that constitute the city.
The spatiotemporal layers of Zürich are made visible through the juxtaposition of historical archival material from the Baugeschichtliches Archiv Zürich (BAZ), recent geospatial surveys by Geomatik und Vermessung Zürich (GeoZ), and speculative audiovisual scenarios created by students from the Departments of Architecture (D-ARCH) and Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering (D-BAUG). These scenarios, created through an audiovisual collage method, are exhibited as visualizations, films, and sound recordings. The speculations address contested sites, including the covering of the Seebahngraben in Zürich-Aussersihl, the community claim of the Hardturmplatz, the daylighting of the Wolfbach stream in Hottingen, and the hypothetical transition from a temperate to a subtropical climate in a neighborhood street in Sihlfeld. ETH students created these audiovisual collages while exploring new aesthetics and meanings for qualitative urban landscapes capable of inspiring desirable futures for the city.
Programme
| Wed. 15 October 2025, 16:00 📍 Franck-Areal, Kreislaufhaus, Basel | Dialogue “2070: Imagining Subtropical Zürich” at the exhibition “After The Deluge” by Michael Schindhelm |
| Thu. 20 November 2025, 18:00 📍BAZ, Neumarkt 4 | Vernissage Exhibition with Apero |
| Wed. 3 December 2025, 17:00 📍BAZ, Neumarkt 4 | Guided Tour of the Exhibition |
Additional Note
The presented work was developed within the seminar series Topology (Dr. Matthias Vollmer, Dr. Philipp Urech) and Landscape Acoustics (Dr. Nadine Schütz) at the Large-scale Virtualization and Modeling Lab (LVML) of ETH Zürich. The exhibition bridges two ongoing research projects on urban transformation, Co-creative Cohabitation Network (CoCoNet) and QUALISCAPES (NRP81), and is supported by Design++, the Baugeschichtliches Archiv Zürich (BAZ), and SNSF Agorà.
Contributors
Fabian Gutscher, Matteo Cadei, Kyan Tami, Cedric Rytz, Leo Aebli, Matteo Baggenstos, David Bergmann, Gaibul Bhullar, Yuzhe Che, Wen Tsung Chen, Zoe Gyr, Nils Hayoz, Ludwig Henke, Yida Hou, Adrian Kramser, Lara Krieger, Marin Nussbaumer, Timm Rogenmoser, Yuxuan Shi, Mert Ünal, Philippe Wegmann, Colin Wiebking, Hoi Yan Young, Shuyuan Zhang, Mariah Derkach, Léo Ornstein, Raffaele Squillacioti, Pin-hsien Tang, Elias Böhnlein, Olivier Knecht, Fabio Tehlar, Idoya Ferro Carrión, Ilu Demont, Luana Bearth, Aikaterini Katsarou, Francisco Coch, Jann Märki, Nadia Schib, Rifa Chowdhury, Anna Kotasz, Severin Hitz, Raphael Baumann, Sofie Klaus, Ella Castellani, Omar El Sayed, Luca Lepori, Josias Regli, Anna Rothstein, Ellen Stenzel, Aaron Zilinski