ETH Zurich Faculty of Architecture
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| Established | 1854 |
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Academic staff
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| Students | 20000 |
| Location | Zürich, Canton of Zürich, Switzerland |
| Campus | Urban |
| Website | www.arch.ethz.ch |
Founded in 1854, the Department of Architecture (D-ARCH) at ETH Zurich is an architecture school of worldwide reputation, providing education in the fields of architecture, landscape architecture, urban planning, and urban design. It has around 1,900 students and 350 staff, and an annual budget of CHF 40 million.
1854 Parliamentary resolution establishing a federal polytechnic school in Zurich, on the basis of the 1848 constitution
15 October 1855 Opening of the ‘Swiss Federal Polytechnic School’ with six divisions, including the Engineering School and – although not originally envisaged – the ‘Building School’
With the appointment of Gottfried Semper, not only a successful architect of monumental buildings but also an established theorist and teacher becomes the first professor and director of the Building School. His educational model of the atelier libre, oriented on the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, conflicts with the polytechnic school’s profile, which is chiefly practical and technically oriented. The pupils work in the drafting room on practical assignments, compete in rivalries and contribute to Sempers’s own projects. Semper succeeds in changing the title of the degree from ‘master builder’ to ‘architect’, but he nonetheless fails to extend the three-year duration of studies.
1857 The second professorial chair, focused on civil engineering, is filled by Ernst Gladbach
1864 The Building School relocates to the newly built polytechnic, erected according to plans by Semper, where it occupies the ground floor of the north and west wings
1866 Maximum of 52 students (consistently below 100 until 1914)
1871 Semper’s departure. Julius Stadler and George Lasius continue to teach in his spirit, but the school is in danger of ossifying
1881 With the appointment of Friedrich Bluntschli – an esteemed architect in the tradition of Semper, albeit far more formalistic – the instruction focuses entirely on the Renaissance vocabulary
1882 The studies are extended to seven semesters
1899 The Building School is renamed as the ‘Architecture School’ and again in 1924 as the ‘Architecture Division’
1900 Gustav Gull, Zurich’s municipal architect, is appointed as professor. Reform architecture arrives, and the differentiation between monumental and civil architecture becomes obsolete. Gull introduces the discipline of ‘urban design’ into the curriculum.
1904 The diploma thesis is separated from the seven semesters of the study programme
1911 The polytechnic is renamed as the ‘Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich’
1914 With Bluntschli’s retirement, instruction in the classical vocabulary is largely curtailed, finally ending in 1925 with the appointment of Friedrich Hess as the successor to Lasius.
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Wikipedia