i am guessing (correct me if i am wrong) you having have not been to switerland, it is like all countries full of average buildings, 90 % not worthy of being called architecture.

sure the swiss architects we see and hear about all the time are great, no doubt about that. but dont think that it's the architectural paradise the magazines might make it seem.

in a way that negates your final question.

I would say that the Swiss just value good design in general. It hasn't been limited to architecture at all- in graphic design, there was Jan Tschichold and 'The New Typography', resulting in a clean 'Swiss Style' that is still seen frequently today, and influenced almost every style after it in some way; Swiss furniture and industrial design is also notable (think Swatch, Swiss Army knives). For quality design to be so prevelant in a region, I would have to think that there is a different set of priorities there that values good design more highly than we are used to in the US.

it's not wrong to ditch. if your city is holding you back, you have no responsibility to stay. it'll just dumb you down. move on to where you can find equals.

women and children first, remember your manners.

oh my god, you're so right. switzerland is freaking awesome. i once had this swiss roommate and he was freaking awesome. he gave me a swiss coffee mug and its freaking awesome. its totally my fantasy to have coffee in switzerland.

and, yeah, i've never been to switzerland. do they all speak english or will i have to speak french and german?

but you can't flush your toilet after 10pm....kind of a deal-breaker.

pan2an

yeah , i've been , tho only for a few days here and there. of course there is a lot of banal architecture (and here, more like 99%) - i didn't mean to say that there wasn't any . But i'd bet you that the comparison of 'good' buildings to total buildings would favor Switzerland more than the US .

i dream of wal-mart becomming the object of a stealth swiss design operation. .. incrimental infiltration , elimination and replacement of certain products with others, till the entire heartland has been converted without their knowing ....

Ahh.... it's called Coop.

- a bit heavy on my swiss love, this is not about whether or not swiss design is great .. but rather - how did it get to where it is .

i think it's an important to realize that switzerland has to worry about maintaining it;s cultural identity in a way that the US doesn't.

I don't know much about swiss development, but would be interested to know how the economic side of building and development differs from the US . ... maybe there is gov't subsidy for design % in a building project, the way there's a art % for some projects in the US .
.. Who are the clients- for all I know, it could be a wretchedly class-based society where only an educated elite who can afford to indulge in aestheitcs are hiring architects... somebody's making $ off those swiss bank accounts. ...

anyone had experience building there?

seriously. or the diener + diener migroses all over the country.
effing expensive to buy food from, though.

the stealthy bunkers designed as farmhouses and rocks are sweet as well.

on a slightly side note, but along the thread of Coop as mentioned above...I just recently returned from two weeks in europe and one of the stellar meals was a bunch of random crap from the Coop deli in Parma.

some ham, some cheese, some crunchy italian bread, some marinated semi-dried tomatoes. it was awesome. driving my little ford on the autostrade, eating awesome supermarket food with my wife.

my point?

i guess that it's not JUST architecture that has been dumbed and or watered down here in the US, but anything and everything.

not to say that everything here is lame, surely not.

and i too have often felt that leaving and moving permanently over-seas would be akin to ditching. so i stay here and try to help bring about the sort of critical mass (no bikes required!) needed to make meaningful progress here in the states.

but you should follow your heart, dude. maybe try and find a six month internship, or 8 week sabbatical program there to check it out.

at the very least you should get a swiss bank account. they're cool too.

whats sad is that the very sound of "america being more Swiss.."
is laughable .
Could obviously never be presented as such ... , and i suppose isn;t really the point.
rather, America being better designed , more involved , streamlined, inventive, caring , resposible , deliberate etc. ...

ha - looked into the bank account thing.... ( for when carreer in arch. fails and i become head of an international crime ring) ... i think i read that you have to show up in person once a year for it to stay active.... I'm 23, i can't budget that in at the moment. .. 1 more reason to move....

I was in Switzerland on my way to Vals. We were sitting on a bus at the local bus depot. There were a few other busses there as well; all lined up next to each other. There was a digital clock on the bus as well as one on the bus platform. As we neared the scheduled time of departure, children on the bus started couning down the time (in German). When the clock struck the approprite time, all of the busses pulled out simoultaneously and drove off...

if they put this much care into there busses...

I took a nap in a park in Switzerland on my way to Detroit from Volterra Italy. it only took me five and a half days to make the trip. One way ticket home?...NO WAY!!
anyways, the park was very nice. it was summer there was a slight breeze that made for perfect sleeping weather. the cheese was nice also.

mdler that's bonkers.

i know a professor that rented a smart car in zuerich for the sole purpose of driving to vals. for slightly more, he could have had a convertible bmw to enjoy the swiss autumn. he's not that bright.

there are plenty of parks in basel i would never sleep in.
still, i never felt near as uneasy in any part of switzerland, italy, france or germany as i did in barcelona.

c - you'd probably have more luck breaking into the german architecture market.

i know a ton of talented german architects that can't get work in switzerland.

and leaving doesn't help the situation here in america, especially if you have special skills.

pls note - i meant the whole deserting thing humbly,( it will obviously be a few years before i become such a crucial national resource that leaving would leave the nation and future of american architecture in jeopardy.. !!)

I slept on the train platform in Zurich one night...there was a strange guy in a spandexy mesh shirt that kept checking me out. Now that I think about it, he looked a lot like Vado

some swiss junkie in turin
ripped me off fo my cash...

I am sorry Vado. I was desperate. Email me your address and i will send you your things back

speaking of swiss junkies..
when my school's travel abroad went to der schweiz, they weren't allowed to go to the apotheke des kantonsspital (the green-dot glased building across from the main hospital addition by gmuer + vacchini) due to the adjacent klinik where la suisse give out drugs.
i went when i lived over there, and was comforted by the automatic rifles toted by the police. it is quite the juxtaposition.

This thread title could be a good name for an international spy scandal/thriller type novel /movie.

Talking about spy scandal, during my first trip to switzerland I went to visit a sport/residential facility designed by ... in Davos. You've heard about davos right? That's where they host these big meeting of the biggest companies in the world, the biggest bank etc... to decide wich way they will use to continue screwing the rest of the world.
So we enter the building, and want to go up but ther's no button on the elevator. but some big blond guy with a moustache suddenly steps out.
So we enter the elevator and visit the building, mostly rooms and corridors, nice colors .... and suddenly we meet another big guy in the corridor, asking us questions in german (fortunately my gf speaks german fluently). And he takes us to as small room, takes our passports, calls freakin' interpol to check our id's.
It turns out the building was used by the secret service as a base for the security people for the world commerce meeting (forgot the official name)!

the sportzentrum in davos is by gigon guyer.
it is heavily overdetailed, but still elegant.

it's the world economic forum that meets there - basically a chance for rich magnates to make deals and lobby politicians in secret.

oh, and gigon guyer have 3 other buildings within a 5 block walk, so if you can make it to davos, it's certainly worth it. you can even get in some skiing if you prefer.

hi there

I am Swiss and sitting here in my appartment in Zurich. It's nice to see that our little country creates some interest!

Well, I study architecture at ETH and wouldn't consider myself as a great talent at it. I mean, I really love architecture now and I may have a good idea every now and then, but I don't consider myself the next Zumthor... I wish! ;-)

Well, my point is: Even though I am not extremly talented, even though I had average marks in my Highschool (or Kantonsschule as we call it) degree, I am still able to attend ETH. Without passing any difficult application tests. And I pay around 700 SFR (about 550 USD) per semester for it. It is a HUGE privilege for us here in Switzerland that we are able to attend such great schools (in other fields as well) without all the challenges that students face abroad. There is at the moment just one field at Swiss universities where you need to pass an application test: Medschool! Every other field is open to anyone, as long as you have your "Kantonsschule degree".

I believe this leads to a greater diversity among students and I assume that this adds a certain quality of diversity to the field of architecture in Switzerland.

I for a start probably would not be studying architecture, if it would cost me a fortune and I had to pass a long and challenging application process to get in a school at all. This, obviously, would be sad for me, since I really like it, now that I got to know the field a little better. But I doubt if my interest and passion for architecture during high school would have been sufficient to get in a good school in the US. I probably would have chosen another profession... something more profitable probably since I had to pay off my education eventually... Businessschool maybe?

Now, that's just the education part, but what I am trying to say is: Switzerland is extremely lucky to be one of the wealthiest countries in the world. I don't wan't to discuss why we are that rich, since this probably would end up becoming very political. But it is not like the Swiss are different form other people in their appreciation for good design. The average Swiss person doesn't like or dislike great architecture more than anyone else. But, having all that money, the average Swiss building can be more expensive hence more thought is likely to go into its design.

My mother is from Vals, so I visit my grandparents there quite often and know the town very well. Nice people live there, not very friendly at first, but once you get to know them... But still, it is not like in people in Vals are more design sensitive than in other places. They appreciate the bath obviously since it worked out pretty well so far for them and they decided to make a bold move when building it in the first place. But this boldness is possible due to the fact that Vals is rather well endowed for a village in the mountains with about 1000 inhabitants (due to mineral water, stone and a dam). I don't know that much about the U.S., but I doubt you would find that many villages of comparable size that could invest about 21 million USD in a bath...

So, I believe Swiss architecture has a high quality standard in general and I am sure many people are proud of this fact. But I wouldn't look for a special condition. I believe the reason is much more banal: money and thus tradition and appreciation.

The idea of having a special condition, an almost magical field of architecture enhancing karma sounds tempting though ;-)

Cheers

P

To add to Peigi's comment...

I've entered a few swiss competition and watched the results of many ( colleges, health care center for elderly people etc..) and the result is pretty intriguing these days i think.

Tessin's "school" started by Snozzi's in the early 80's has had such a big influence, and has still in schools ( EPFL, ETH etc..) that MOST of the projects u see today are all alike. Swiss architects have now become masters of plans and sections, but the volumic result is, ( again this is my opinion seeing it from abroad ( french ), pretty clonic.
I have hard times seeing at a smaller size building today saying what is inside... a school for kids looks exactly like a health center, and so is the high school. The use and over use of rectangle windows in concrete facades is turning into a gimmick and most of the works i see ( from the competition results to CV's from student applying at my office ) seems like coming out of ONE architecture firm...

Really strange...i hope they sometimes look at it with a bit of distance!

I'll try to copy paste a few images of various recent projects to show that...
Its true also that money and investment at the right moment can also output quality construction. As comparison, Switzerland public buildings have a construction budget which are at least 250% above the budget of the same building built in France.

Nils

the crack down on foreigners and their tax breaks

link

peigi's point is very, very apt...the average swiss doesn't appreciate architecture any more or less than the average american...but the average swiss client can spend more on it than the average american client.

america happens to be one of those countries where architecture is a commodity, built not to last, whereas switzerland is one of perhaps dozens of countries where people are surrounded by buildings that are 100s of years old and people have an expectation that their new buildings should last just as long.

switzerland is great, the ticino is incredible: italian language, food, and coffee...but the trains run on time and the streets are clean.

ochona -
in basel, local architects are somewhat revered and followed closely in the papers (herzog + de meuron, michael alder, roger diener and morger + degelo before splitting up)

This is a minor correction, and probably not of great concern to this thread:

Jan Tschichold was not Swiss, but escaped Nazi Germany to Switzerland and continued to reside there until his death. The New Typography was written in Germany, where he was born.

are you kidding achona!!! the swiss know way more about architecture than americans! i was there recently looking for some buildings and everybody gave me perfect directions. everybody knew who i was talking about.

also, don't forget who the AVERAGE american is.

to punctuate mhollenstein's point, i was just talking to a friend about this.

when i was in haldenstein (near chur) trying to find zumthor's atelier, we stumbled on a multi-family project that looked like it HAD to be a zumthor project. we were walking around, sketching, taking pictures, when this gorgeous woman walked out, and asked us what were were up to. started chatting, and asked if it was designed by zumthor. she went nuts, and was flattered that we thought her house had been designed by him.

it's hard to imagine that happening stateside.

hahaha, thats awesome holz.box! i went to Zumthor's atelier, it is awesome, a bit of a fortress, but really nice. its interesting to see how even he has been evolving his design philosophies when you compare his older timber atelier, with his new almost rubber like(due to its rubber formwork) concrete house.

i haven't been to the new house (is it his atelier as well?) but the wood rain screen on the atelier is really nicely detailed.
interesting using rubber formwork, that would explain the whiteness of the concrete? or is this a typical zumthor spec?

its not a typical spec, i think his house was the first time it was used. but he will probably use it again. the whiteness is also due to the smaller sediment he used, and sand/cement/etc mixture.

the new house is part of his atelier, i think he works there with most staff in the older atelier.

this is a nice sampler if you can still get your hands on it

http://www.arquitecturaviva.com/Antiguos/AVMonografias89.html