A New Beginning? (eBook)

It is well documented that Switzerland, compared with other countries, was late in giving women the right to vote. This was also the case with the introduction of a federal law on spatial planning. Women have had the right to vote in Switzerland since 1971, and a federal law on spatial planning has only been in place since 1980. In both cases – women’s right to vote and the federal law on spatial planning − direct democracy held back progress. At the same time, direct democracy in Switzerland brought about a lively debate among the public over the objectives of spatial planning – at the federal, cantonal and municipal levels. The extent to which the public were engaging in discussions around spatial planning, it can be assumed, was higher in the period under investigation than in other European countries. From the 35 years between the end of the Second World War and the introduction of the Spatial Planning Act (1980), the period up to the oil crisis in 1973 was characterised by unrestrained economic growth, strong settlement growth, rising land demands, increasing environmental pollution and continuing landscape destruction. Swiss local, regional and national planners had to wage their battle for controlled growth, for the separation of development and protected areas, for the protection of the landscape and for the containment of land price speculation without having institutionalised spatial planning at the national level.

In the autumn of 1945, E.F. Burckhardt, member of CIAM (Congrès internationaux d'architecture moderne or International Congresses of Modern Architecture) and editor-in-chief of the magazine Plan, the publication of the Swiss Association for Regional Planning, founded in 1943, published a paper on the importance of CIAM. Burckhardt begins his article by writing:

“In times of war, which is referred to, as a consolation, as a time of culturally sensitive self-reflection, international relations are broken off and everything international is likewise frowned upon. The folders full of letters and files, which contain an exchange of views with like-minded people from other countries, are left aside and gather dust. Now, in the post-war period, however, one begins to awaken again from this self-reflection and realizes from what narrow perspectives one has had to develop one’s ideas, and how exposure to foreign influences becomes necessary from all sides.”

However, Burckhardt also noted in the abovementioned article that contact with the other members of CIAM had only partially been restored in the second half of 1945. He himself emphasised the importance of professional exchanges of ideas with other countries. In the first year of the Plan (1944) an essay entitled Geography and Planning in USA and England, as well as short papers on regional planning in Russia and Germany were published, the latter of which being referred to as a source for a newspaper article that had appeared in the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung. The first two issues of 1945 (only the second year of the magazine) were entirely dedicated to planning approaches abroad. It covered Sweden, France, Turkey, the USSR, the USA and, in several individual papers, England. The majority of the experiences of Swiss architects and planners, which they had acquired in the individual countries, were used. The year after, 1946, a paper on planning in Poland followed and in 1947 an issue was mainly devoted to England, and among other topics, to the Town and Country Planning Act. In 1948, individual contributions relating to urban planning in London, Stockholm and Warsaw appeared. Finally, the year 1949 brought contributions about regional planning in Hungary and South Africa as well as an article about reconstruction and local planning in Bavaria. Apart from a contribution on Population Education in the Reconstruction of Germany, the Plan in the second half of the 1940s put foreign developments high up on its list of priorities but left out Germany – contrary to what was originally announced in issue 2 of 1945 (before the end of the war).

However, the professional exchange of ideas with regard to spatial planning across national borders went beyond journalistic papers directly after the end of the war. The exhibition USA Baut took place in Zurich in September 1945, presenting examples of U.S. architecture and engineering. Subsequently, E.F. Burckhardt ended the 1945 series of issues of the Plan by writing:

“A trip abroad convinced me that planning efforts in Switzerland are met with great interest everywhere. Those of us who survived the war are expected to achieve special and exemplary things. When we hear this, we are somewhat intimidated, but we want to try to repay the trust placed in us by other countries as much as possible.”

In the period from 1910 to 1935, a robust exchange of ideas on the subject of architecture, urban development and planning occurred on an international scale. This period began with the publication of the Plan of Chicago in 1909 and the Groß-Berlin competition took place in 1910. Both of these events indicated a step towards regional planning, and both featured at the 1910 General Urban Development Exhibition in Berlin. In 1911, a Zurich Urban Development Exhibition took place, which presented the show put on in Berlin, enriched by Swiss examples. Inspired by the Groß-Berlin competition the Social Democrat city councillor Emil Klöti campaigned for an urban development competition in Greater Zurich, which also opened the door to regional planning in the city of Zurich and its 22 neighbouring municipalities.

After years of famine during the First World War, the Swiss Association for Internal Colonization and Industrial Agriculture was founded in 1918, laying the foundations for an increased agricultural production “to create better access to food and housing for a greater number of people in our country” (Sachs 1947, 133), and to deal with the relocation of farmers affected by hydroelectric dams. Its co-founder and first managing director Hans Bernhard dealt with the Swiss settlement policy in 1919 and presented the draft Swiss Settlement Act in 1920 calling for a settlement plan for Switzerland. The Innenkolonisation was thought of from the settlement of Switzerland of the countryside and agriculture − and not originating from the city.

In a conversation in 1974 planner Rudolf Steiger (founding member of CIAM) reflected on the beginning of regional planning in Switzerland: “The ideas were influenced by planning in the Ruhrgebiet, [by the] predecessor of [Josef] Umlauf: [Robert Schmidt].” (HS 1412: 175.1, 1, bequest of Rolf Meyer-von Gonzenbach)

According to Rudolf Steiger, there were no significant developments in the field of regional planning in Switzerland before 1930. This changed with the founding of CIAM:

“When the CIAM was founded… very few of its members had any knowledge of urban planning or contacts with professional planning circles such as the … International Federation for Housing and Town Planning or the renowned National Conference on City Planning.” (van Es et al. 2014, 163)

In 1928, the first CIAM Congress took place in La Sarraz (Switzerland), with significant Swiss participation. The importance of La Sarraz for the international spatial planning debate within the framework of CIAM is emphasised by Rudolf Steiger in the above-mentioned conversation:

“The resolution of La Sarraz (1928) does not, after all, point to formalistic goals, but to the necessity of national and regional planning… In La Sarraz, national planning was taken for granted.” (HS 1412:175.1, 4 f., bequest Rolf Meyer-von Gonzenbach)

Through CIAM, Swiss representatives took a continually active role within the international debate during the 1930s. Ideas from abroad were imported to Switzerland via the CIAM network. Using the example of the experimental large housing estate Berlin-Haselhorst Walter Gropius...