Formalistic Analysis of the Architecture of the Neo-Liberal Ideology: Campus Hönggerberg

Abstract

The elective examines the architecture produced by neoliberal ideology through the analysis of built examples in Zurich. Based on the method of historical building recording, the formal-architectural characteristics are described, analysed and finally summarised in the sense of a formal catalogue of neoliberal architecture.

Objective

The participants critically deal with contemporary urban and building production from a design perspective. By applying the method of the course, they learn the ability to describe and analyze the formal-architectural properties of architecture.

Content

The transformation of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich can be retraced through its constructions. The Semper-Belvedere of the industrial bourgeoisie before the turn of the century recalls a feudal type. The Hönggerberg satellite from the 1960s, as a rational production facility on a greenfiield site with functionally differentiated buildings, does not (or no longer) disguise its proximity to the industry. The corporate headquarters architecture of the laboratory and office complexes of the late 20th century coincide with the time when the university finally reoriented from national to international. Under the title "Science city" - the inversion of the exodus of the contested inner city of the 68s - the Hönggerberg site has been "developed" since the turn of the century. The declared goal was and is to compete for the top positions in the global rankings and to live up to its own claim of being a world-leading university. In order to realise the "ambitious development project", "alternative financing and participation models" were permitted on federally owned land (cf. ETH Zurich: Science City, 2006). Just completed, it exemplifies the self-understanding of what 'good planning' and 'good politics' are with regard to the development of a university campus. Instead of tracing the complex planning processes and accepting what has been built as a consequence of them, the elective turns the analysis 'from head to toe': what has been realised here? If objects cannot lie (cf. Bulle, Heinrich: Handbuch der Archäologie, Munich 1913), ideology can also be read from the architecture itself, provided it is questioned with methodological precision. For this purpose, the formalist analysis leans on the scientific method of historical building recording: In a first step, aspects of this architecture are precisely examined and described on site, in order to work out formal-architectural principles of the project in a second step. The neighboring buildings of the first stage will be helpful to grasp the peculiarities of the Science-city-project. In a third step, the results of the formalistic analysis are summarised in the sense of a catalogue of neoliberal architecture.

Resources