Studying Abroad at the ETH Zurich
Homeless and without a visa — that was my reality when I arrived in Zurich. I spent my first week camped out in a hostel on the outskirts of the city, combing through an endless amount of housing advertisements while simultaneously organizing my residency application and taking an intensive German course. Every day seemed more hectic than the last, but it was absolutely worth it. I’m currently renting a room from a Swiss family in a home that dates to the mid-1500s. It’s of a stone construction with a half-timbered interior that is a collage of renovations and alterations made throughout the centuries. Also, due to the age of the property, there is actually a backyard garden right in the heart of the city. In addition to the historic character of the home, living with the Swiss has been an incredible cultural experience unlike any other. Between authentic meals, daily interaction, and subtle social nuances, it has really allowed me to appreciate aspects of their culture that I would have never imagined if I was living in student housing.
The ETH and University of Zurich main campuses are just a few blocks from where I live, and from an architectural perspective, they showcase everything from the works of Gottfried Semper to Santiago Calatrava. On the northern side of the city, there’s the Science City campus which is home to the ETH architecture department as well as physics and engineering. The public transport is phenomenal so getting from place to place is practically effortless. Although there are a huge range of courses offered here, I decided to focus my studies on urban design and development. One of my courses is “Information Architecture and Future Cities” and another is “New Methods in Urban Analysis and Simulation.” While one looks more at the development of cities and the other looks at computational analysis, both have been very instrumental in furthering my understanding of the city.
My studio is with Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron. Since their office is located in Basel our studio meets there as opposed to in Zurich but it’s only around 45 minutes away by train and having Jacques and Pierre as professors has been incredible. Studio is structured differently than at Tennessee; instead of meeting every other day we meet Tuesday and Wednesday from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. In many ways it’s a more like working at an office than a class. It is also different in that it’s an urban design research studio with our work to be included in a publication.
As far as what we do, Studio Basel focuses on the rapid development of sub-urban sprawl in the Swiss Mid-lands and, as I said before, is primarily a research-based studio. We are made up of twelve students working in two-person teams, with each team focusing on different sprawl conditions stemming from varying geography, politics, urban structure, transportation, economy, geology, and culture. My team is looking specifically at the central rail hub city of Olten and the ways in which transportation infrastructure has impacted and will impact the development of the city and its surrounding landscape. A short excerpt from the project brief describes the semester as “the second of a series of four consecutive studios which will tackle different urban conditions of Switzerland and is part of a larger project that aims at critically contributing to the debate on the future of the country. Already central to the current political and public debate (i.e. the Zweitwohnungsinitiative and the recent Raumplanungsgesetz), the understanding of the Swiss landscape will become the lens through which to formulate an alternative vision for the future of the city.”
In addition to studio, the ETH also has what it calls Seminar Week. This is a week-long trip to a variety of incredible locations around the world and we have the option to travel with our studio or with a different group. I don’t remember all of the cities, but as far as countries go there were a number of options ranging from Italy, Spain, Denmark, Portugal, Germany, the United States, Japan, Zambia, and Turkey, to name a few. My studio went to Istanbul and it was an experience unlike any other. The focus of the seminar week was on the impact of water in shaping and developing the city, so we explored everything from Roman aqueducts in the countryside, to cisterns beneath the city, to the culture of public fountains, to taking boats out on the Bosphorus River. Our travels also focused on the work of Mimar Sinan and we toured an extensive amount of his mosques, some of which were breathtaking and beyond description. The Seminar Week was also a great opportunity to connect with faculty in an informal setting. At one of the dinners I sat next to Pierre de Meuron, and we talked for well over two hours about everything from international cuisine to architectural philosophy.
Outside of school, there is also plenty to do in the area. A few weeks ago, I went to Zumthor’s Thermal Baths, which is located in Vals and only two hours away by train. I’ve competed in the Zurich marathon, spent some time at the city’s pubs, traveled around remote parts of the country in a rental car, gone snowboarding and hiking in the Swiss Alps, and run with a local track club. I think one of the best aspects of this experience, though, is that since the ETH is such an international university, I have had the opportunity to meet such a diverse group of people from a variety of backgrounds and cultures. In my German language course alone, there were over ten countries represented amongst only twenty students! I could not recommend the program here more highly, and if anyone is interested or would like more information please don’t hesitate to send me an email and I would be more than happy to talk all about it.
submitted by Lewis Williams