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Zurich is full of surprises and enchanting sights. My introduction began from the train station which takes advantage of the flat valley bottom, occupying a manmade platform that straddles the River Limmat soon after it emerges from Zürichsee. In an enlightened piece of civil engineering, the cool crystal waters flow unpolluted beneath and re-emerge to feed an inner-city hydroelectric plant that doubles as a bathing channel complete with diving boards and banked with bars, volleyball pitches and skate parks. Still unaware of these attractions I decided to head to the station entrance to collect some information. A few teenagers, who must have arrived on trains even earlier than me, sat around sheepishly thinking of opening their first cans as technicians set up speakers which occasionally let a great crackle rip through the cavernous station hall. It was clear some festival was about to begin. In fact it was the day of Europe’s second biggest techno party, the Street Parade, and the degree of chaos Zurich would invite into its centre later that day was to cause me much surprise.
However, the festival was not the reason for my visit, I had come to seek the city’s quieter attractions – its art galleries, libraries and universities. For centuries a list of pre-eminent architects and noble institutions have been steadily endowing Zurich with magnificent public buildings, many of which I am sure I passed in complete ignorance. The first one that I stumbled upon was an extension to the Zentralbibliothek which I first took to be by Mario Botta. Actually an Alex and Heinz Eggimann design, it proved to be a careful work in proportion, fine material, light and precise junctioning.
After breakfast and a stroll along the riverside park I spotted a strange, if not ugly verdigris dome sprouting unexpectedly from an old building. Not anticipating too much I nevertheless decided on a closer investigation and found a way inside. It soon became clear, however, that I had discovered something truly special. The windows, that would formerly have opened onto a courtyard, now looked onto a whitewashed cube, almost entirely filled by a series of pale wooden ellipses ascending in tiers until a glorious sky lit canopy high above. Entrance to this extension was from the rear of the building and several storeys below.
This first storey was quite empty, only a symmetrical pair of friezes, depicting racing bulls bounding across an horizon and two Brancusi-esque sculpted wings of jet decorate the hall. In this flamboyantly minimal space with the great hoops hovering above, suspended all but invisibly, and the central aperture pouring light deep into the shadowy ground floor, it was easy to find focus. To leave one’s thoughts, memories and responsibilities to circle with the bulls or their ghosts, as ceremoniously as one would leave a jacket and hat at the door. On the first floor I was soon informed by the librarian that I had found the Zurich University Law Library and, although it was already sufficiently evident to me, that it had been designed by Santiago Calatrava. Taking an assuredly speedy glass elevator to the top floor, I emerged adjacent to the building’s crowning glory – a W-shaped shade that slowly unfolded in a wave to meet the sun like a majestic wing – centre to tip.
By this stage I was already quite converted to Zurich’s disciplined yet natural attitude. Its intellectual and financial investments spoke for themselves and they had certainly won my respect. When I returned to the streets they had been transformed by the day’s events – party goers, young and old, drunk or better, filled the streets, following noisy carts towards the lake, leaving behind piles of mess and the odd semi-comatose heap. Yet, however energetic the crowd were, they seemed a weak threat to the established order. And as I climbed away from it, up towards Semper’s University Building which presides over the town with its grand domes and halls, old Zurich finally seemed to break its silence as a medieval bell shook the stones as it marked the hour.
