This is an abstract of the history of the library:

The beginnings of the Werner Oechslin Library reach back to a time when the study of source texts and their validation through checking original documents was only acknowledged to be of peripheral importance, significant at most in narrow fields of specialist research. Today attitudes towards source material research have radically changed. Uncertainty and new focuses within the humanities require that underlying foundations be examined, and this has led to new evaluations and often also to utterly new discoveries. Interest in sources and insight into the necessity of studying them – precisely, too, where thought formulations, scientific models and attempts to develop an integrated grasp and understanding are involved – is nowadays greater than ever before, and continues to grow.

Thanks to patient preparatory work, the Werner Oechslin Library Foundation now offers a tool that can do justice to the demands of source studies, and support interest in academic work based on original texts. Since 1980, large parts of the library have been in Einsiedeln. This resource expanded considerably with the return of Werner Oechslin in 1985, after years of work in Italy, the USA and Germany, when the library was systematically developed and enlarged. At external instigation the decision was made to transform this private library into a public institution, in order to make it available to a larger circle of academics. In 1996 the architect Mario Botta had drafted plans for a new library building project, that were realized in several stages, hampered by numerous difficulties. On June 9th 2006 we could celebrate the inauguration of this unique Library in the presence of Pascal Couchepin (Swiss Federal Council) and 160 guests.

www.bibliothek-oechslin.ch

Werner Oechslin studied art history, archeology, philosophy and mathematics in Zurich and Rome. From 1971 to 1974 he was assistant at the University of Zurich. Then, in 1975 and 1978 he taught at MIT in Cambridge, Mass. and in 1979 at the RISD in Providence. After a short period at the FU Berlin 1979/80, where in 1980 he qualified as a university lecturer (Habilitation), he went as professor for five years to Bonn and in 1985 to the Ecole d’Architecture at the University of Geneva. Afterwards Werner Oechslin received a professorship in art history and architecture at the ETH Zurich. In 1987 he taught at the Harvard Graduate School of Design as a visiting professor. From 1987-2006 he was head of the Institute of the History and Theory of Architecture (gta). Werner Oechslin was member of the Board of Trustees at the CCA Montréal and of the consiglio scientifico during the foundation of the Scuola di Architettura in Mendrisio. Since 2003 he is in the management board of the Internationalen Bauakademie Berlin.

Werner Oechslin’s lecture:

“Now we have already remarked, that even in philosophers define a difference between objects and their impressions on the senses, wich they understand to both exist simultaneously and be similar to each other, this nonetheless is a difference which is not grasped by the vast majority of people, who would never ascribe to the belief in a dual existence and impression, because they simply observe one thing.”