The cultural heritage of ETH

“That was amazing!” Walter Zweifel recalls the moment two years ago when he found a photograph of his home village of Linthal which dated back to 1898. The retired carpenter was searching Google for historic pictures of Linthal when he came across the ETH Library’s online Image Archive (e-pics). Zweifel didn’t know that he was about to discover what is now his biggest hobby.

He spends an average of 24 hours a week identifying cultural assets in old photographs and preserving this heritage. He is one of around 920 volunteers participating in the ETH Library’s various crowdsourcing projects.

He began by describing historical photos of his home canton for the ETH Image Archive and correcting inaccurate information. But in the meantime, this nature lover has found even more pleasure in the sMapshot project. Using digital 3D models, he determines the exact geographical position of Swiss towns on old images. The pensioner from Glarus has already georeferenced over 3,000 photos. On ETH Zurich’s Cultural Heritage Day, he took part in a workshop on the latest crowdsourcing project of the ETH Library: e-manuscripta. In the future, Walter Zweifel also wants to help transcribe digitised handwritten documents online.

ETH: Switzerland's driving force

Digitising cultural assets and making them available to the Swiss population is one of the tasks of the library and of ETH Zurich’s 22 collections and archives. A large number of the archives are also of great importance on an international scale. One of them is the archive of the Institute for the History and Theory of Architecture (gta).

The biggest architectural archive in Switzerland is located on the Hönggerberg campus and contains plans, photographs, letters and models from 250 eminent architects. It is used above all by researchers, students and media professionals. “Many of our international visitors come here because of Semper,” says Bruno Maurer, who has been in charge of the gta archive for 17 years. Gottfried Semper was one of the most important architects of the 19th century and coincidentally the founder and first professor of the Bauschule, which is now the Department of Architecture at ETH. His assets include around 800 plans for our university’s main building.

“ETH’s main building is one of the buildings that characterises Zurich as well as Swiss culture the most,” explains Bruno Maurer. “On the one hand, ETH features prominently in the cityscape, and on the other hand, this building – unlike any other – reflects the importance of education and science for Switzerland. Many see ETH as Switzerland’s driving force and feel a certain sense of pride.”

ETH designs Switzerland

The people of Basel are also proud of their St. Antonius Church. It is considered one of the major works of Swiss architecture and was built by ETH graduate – and later ETH professor – Karl Moser. The three architects of the Swiss National Museum and the team that designed Prime Tower also studied at our university and later returned to ETH as professors. Some of their initial blueprints are housed in the gta archive. The archive is also home to historic spatial and landscape planning documents.

In fact, ETH has played a decisive role in Swiss spatial and infrastructure planning. Partly because spatial planners are only trained here and partly “because ETH researchers work closely with our graduates in regional and cantonal planning offices, illustrating possible future scenarios and collaborating on solutions for future problems,” says Bernd Scholl, Professor at the Institute for Spatial and Landscape Development.

Scholl himself completed his postgraduate studies in spatial planning at ETH Zurich at the beginning of the eighties. For 12 years he has been managing the continuing education programmes in spatial planning at our university. “The Swiss are finally implementing what we have been teaching for a long time at ETH,” says the 64-year-old, referring to the basic planning principle that internal development precedes external development. The Swiss population voted to adopt this principle in 2013 with the revision of the Federal Spatial Planning Act. This helps to increase the residential density of existing settlements and, for example, to reuse abandoned industrial sites instead of building new ones on greenfield sites. Preventing urban sprawl protects recreational and agricultural areas and avoids higher energy consumption.

Linthal as a role model

In 2006, Scholl started the Raum+ project in order to help planners increase residential density. Working with cantons and municipalities, he found out which communities contained the most residential areas that were already applicable to the zoning law. “Two-thirds of the spatial reserves are in small and medium-sized municipalities with less than 10,000 inhabitants,” says the professor.

One of these municipalities is Linthal, which merged with others in 2011 to form Glarus Süd (Glarus South). “The industrial site of an abandoned spinning mill in Linthal has recently been converted into a modern health and prevention centre. Over the next few years, they are planning to build a cross-generational housing project,” adds Zweifel, who has never moved away from the canton of Glarus.

Where does his love for his homeland come from?

His strong ties to the region are not a coincidence. “Switzerland built a broad railway network very early on,” says Bernd Scholl. The fact that even small towns are connected to modern, reliable public transport, and that the time it takes to travel from city to city is relatively short, means that Swiss people are less inclined to move home when they change jobs than people in other countries. Add a pinch of federalism and direct democracy: “Every municipality is proud of their identity, and residents can decide about the smallest of changes, such as renovating a schoolhouse. This consolidates their municipal identity and provides them with a social anchor,” explains the professor. Nowhere else in Europe is spatial planning as important and as professional as in Switzerland.

But it is not just ETH architects and planners who shape the culture of people in Switzerland. Whether the first personal computer, the first mobile prosthesis or the first large-screen projector – ETH inventions have changed the lives of millions of people around the world. Just recently, ETH physicist Ursula Keller received the European Inventor Award for lifetime achievement (ETH News reported). Such female role models also encourage more young women to pursue a career in science.

Zweifel was never interested in a scientific career. Twenty-four years ago, he fulfilled his dream and founded a joinery with four friends. This entrepreneurial culture connects him with many ETH graduates of today: 25 ETH spin-offs are founded every year. Over 90 percent survive the first five years, and many also become very successful at an international level.