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Subject Semester FS22 (Fachsemester) in the Field of History and Theory in Architecture (gta)
Last Updated: 2026-02-05 16:08:46
Abstract
Material Commons and the City: ZurichThis Research Studio focuses on the material commons of Zurich and explores how local material resources influence the aesthetic, construction and craft cultures. It attempts to answer questions as: What are the material commons and how do architects and other citizens engage with them? How do material resources produce a common architectural and urban idiom?
Objective
The Research Studio has two objectives. First, to develop an ‘Archeology’ of Zürich’s material commons. In this part, the work of the urban historian or theoretician is understood as an archaeological venture. The collective material stock, as well as the crafts and realisations (buildings and neighbourhoods) related to it, will be systematically analysed as the outcome of codes and as reliant on established practices of ‘commoning’. The result will be a catalogue of the city’s common pool material resources, illustrating how these provide a basis for practices of ‘commoning’ and how, as architectural and urban figures, they are integrated into and have an impact upon the city fabric. Second, to develop a 'Retroactive Manifesto'. Based on the archeology of the first phase, students will explore the inherent logics of the material commons of Zurich. The idea is that the uncovering of these logics not only helps to comprehend the historical development of the material commons, but also to speculate about future scenarios for engaging with material resources in the city. The past, present and future roles of material commons in the city will be discussed, as a more comprehensive project for the city as we know it and as it might evolve.
Content
Material Commons and the City: Zurich Cities have always been places based on common resources and common practices. While designing and constructing the architecture of the city, architects, urban designers, builders, and inhabitants have had to engage with common resources located in particular places and geographies: inherited common-pool resources (water, nature, air); material common-pool resources (clay, brick, stone, wood); and immaterial common-pool resources (craft, knowledge). This understanding of the city, as related to common resources and practices, has gained renewed attention, as neoliberalism replaces ever-shrinking welfare structures, and global urbanization is accompanied by rising inequality. It is not only architects and urban designers who are again becoming interested in alternative principles of governing common resources, but also political movements and society at large. Some of these issues – generally called ‘the commons’ – have also received growing academic attention in the last decades within the fields of critical urban studies, urban history, urban geography and the social sciences. This Research Studio continues the investigations into the rich history of ‘the commons’ in the city of Zürich by focusing on its material resources. The ‘material commons’ will be investigated from architectural, urban, typological, environmental and material perspectives. We will explore how common practices have affected the development of the city, and conversely how material commons enable and structure common practices. The research will unlock an alternative reading of the urban and architectural qualities of the built environment of the city.
Resources
Lecture Notes
Methodology: Exploring the Tools and Knowledge of the ArchitectThe main hypothesis of the Research Studio is that historical and theoretical research can gain from a profound use of the tools and knowledge of an architect. During the Research Studio students will employ specific architectural tools, such as drawing, writing, and model making to explore historical and theoretical realities. Students will be urged to explore various methods of composing analytical and interpretative drawings. They will reflect upon the capacity of drawing methods from the field of architecture, such as plan drawing, sectional drawings, mappings, serial visions, public drawings, diagramming and perspective representations to act as tools of historical and theoretical research. At the same time, they will be asked to investigate various analytical and interpretative modes of scale-model making. Students may work with different types of models (structural models, mass models, counter form models, landscape and territorial models) as ways to historically or theoretically explore the reality of the city.Far from being simple graphic or artefactual restitutions of the city, these drawings and models will create morphological, thematic or theoretical links between various occurrences in the city. These methods of drawing and model making will be combined with more conventional investigative techniques in the fields of history and theory such as discourse analysis, iconographic studies and compositional investigation, to support a better historical or theoretical understanding of specific occurrences and conditions in the city of Zürich.Students will also be stimulated to use their spatial, formal, material and constructive architectural knowledge to offer alternative historical or theoretical interpretations of the reality that they encounter in the archives, in the library or in the city. They will be asked to activate their specific spatial, typological, compositional, technical, material and constructive expertise to probe into the various historical layers of the architecture of the city in newfangled ways.Within the general theme of material commons, students will be guided to identify their own subtheme, as well as explore their own different methodologies of doing research. During the Research Studio students will confront their empirical knowledge (about space, typology, composition, technique, material and construction), pertaining to the autonomy of architecture, with other types of knowledge (on politics, economy, the social and cultural) that belong to the heteronomy of architecture. In the relation between autonomous and heteronomous knowledge, a new understanding of the city will be constructed. The combination of these tools and methods will offer an in-depth mode of historical and theoretical research, wherein the students will retro-actively explore the spatial, formal, material and constructive features of a particular situation to uncover and reconstruct the logics that have led to a certain urban condition. On the basis of this research, students will be able to develop an architectural hypothesis of the developments in the city of Zürich.
Learning Materials (Links)
General Information
- Language
- English
- Levels
- MSC
Examination
- Type
- graded semester performance
Registration & Places
Course Components
| Type | Title | Time & Place | Hours |
|---|---|---|---|
| independent project |
Subject Semester FS22 (Fachsemester) in the Field of History and Theory in Architecture (gta)
Permission from lecturers required for all students.
Self dependent work.
|
No time listed | 400 h semesterly |