Materiality & Construction - 4 Positions in Contemporary Swiss Architecture
Materiality & Construction - 4 Positions in Contemporary Swiss Architecture
4 Swiss architects were invited to one day seminar at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. The event took place in on November 14, 2009 in the Piper Auditorium. Over 150 visitors were present and enjoyed intriguing presentations and lively discussions.
Today with the dissolution of national borders and the emergence of a global market for architectural design, the guest speakers from Switzerland and their discussants challenged what terms such as „Swiss“ or „American“ mean with respect to architecture and the built work. In order to challenge this working hypothesis on various “theories of practice” and their relation to the contested terrain of the “National” the conference brought together practitioners and educators from Switzerland (ETH, EPFL, UDSI Mendrisio) and the US (Harvard GSD) to open a dialogue on parallels and differences of the production, reflection and education of architecture:
Marcel Meili, Ines Lamunière, Daniel Niggli, and Harry Gugger represented the Swiss side. Local discussants included Mark Jarzobek, Michael Meredith, Ingeborg Rocker, Danielle Etzler, and Hashim Sarkis.
The event was initiated by Ole Fischer (Harvard GSD) and Elli Mosayebi (ETH Zurich).
