CHAIR OF ARCHITECTURE
AND URBAN DESIGN —
PROF. KEES CHRISTIAANSE

AIRPORTS AND CITIES - Knowledge-intensive workplaces in Zurich 

Prof. Kees Christiaanse | Ass. Christian Salewski, Dr. Benedikt Boucsein

About

In the last 40 years various commercial businesses (such as banks, insurance companies, management, and auditors, but also architecture and advertising) have set up business in an apparently unspectacular setting in Glatttalstadt, an area near Zurich Airport. This landscape of office buildings and lightweight commercial buildings is a functional and typological terra incognita, but at closer inspection, also very exciting and highly informative for those interested in the urbanization processes.

Working Hypothesis

The research work is based on the assumption that since the 1970s the buildings erected or rented by these companies have developed typologically in such a way that changed commercial requirements and other factors like economic cycles are reflected in a quasi-evolutionary sequence of buildings.

Procedure

In order to pursue this theory, groups of two students in the elective course will examine six examples of commercial buildings in the vicinity of Zurich Airport.  First we will examine the urban planning context of the building and then record the different types. From this collection of types, we will discuss in part 2 how to create a typological classification. Finally, we will synthesize the research results and reexamine the initial assumed basis of an evolutionary development.

10 students