Die Bauschule am Eidgenössischen Polytechnikum in Zürich

Martin Tschanz
Die Bauschule am Eidgenössischen Polytechnikum in Zürich
Architekturlehre zur Zeit von Gottfried Semper (1855–1871)

2015. 16.5 x 24.5 cm, softcover with flap
340 pages, 159 illustrations
ISBN 978-3-85676-343-5
CHF 58.00 / EUR 54.00
German

Designed by Philippe Mouthon

Order

The building school founded in 1855 at the Swiss Federal Polytechnic in Zurich, the forerunner of today’s ETH Department of Architecture, shaped the modern profession of architect in a pioneering way: under the direction of Gottfried Semper, elements of the academic training tradition were integrated into the fundamentally polytechnically oriented school. The result was a teaching that combines scientific, artistic and technical aspects. The relevance of the individual subjects and their relation to central teaching in the architecture studio were no less controversial than they are today. The ‘technical direction’, represented above all by the architect Ernst Gladbach, soon no longer had the weight originally intended for it. However, it remained the second pole of education, which complemented the artistic one.
How Gottfried Semper understood his subject, he demonstrated not least with his university building in Zurich, built between 1859 and 1864, in which he manifested architecture as an integrating art mediating between different cultures and disciplines.