Planning competitions in the city of Zurich
Aim of the project
- Digitization of the most important plans from the planning competitions of the city of Zurich
- Linking the digital copies with the existing metadata in the gta archive database
- Publication of the image data and metadata on the research portal of the gta archive
Description of the project
The City of Zurich's planning competitions fonds were taken over by the gta archive in November 2022. It comprises over 10,000 plans for 1,250 award-winning or purchased projects and 120 competition procedures from the period from 1925 to 1995. In a first step, these materials were viewed, sorted, archived and inventoried. A selection of around 3,000 plans were digitized in 2023 as part of the first sub-project.
A further 2,000 or so sheets are to follow this year based on the same selection criteria. The aim is a) an integral digitization of all existing designs of the competitions classified as particularly important, b) an integral digitization of particularly interesting designs for other competitions and c) a selective digitization of individual other particularly interesting sheets (especially perspective drawings or coloured and illustrated explanatory reports). This selection should also be representative for the entire period and for the various building projects in order to convey as dense a picture as possible of the competition culture of the city of Zurich.
Synergies and context
The extensive collection is of great public interest. By digitizing the most important plans, they are to be made generally accessible on the gta archive's research portal. This will also lay the foundations for a planned research project on the history of the competition system in Switzerland. An exhibition of the most interesting sheets will also be organized at the Zurich Architecture Centre ZAZ. Since the beginning of 2023, a permanent section entitled "Archive pearl" has been running in the magazine Hochparterre Wettbewerbe, in which selected projects or competition procedures from the archive are presented.
Time frame
January 1, 2023 to December 31, 2024