CONTENTS:
1 Modern and realistic. The art of buildinat the dawn of the 2ist Century. ................... 7
Swiss - but what does that mean?................. 8
2 Industrial and technical innovation
The 19* century .............................. 18
New tasks for the building professions ............19
Engineers, the elite of the young Swiss state ........ 21
Academic architects and Republican
architecture .............................. 24
The Polytechnikum in Zurich .................. 27
The railroads - project of the century. ............ 28
Iron and'Graphical Statics'..................... 32
Semper School ............................. 34
The debate on a'national architecture' ............ 35
Quantum leap in urban construction ............. 38
3 A new architecture is born ...................... 42
Reinforced concrete triumphs .................. 42
The case of the disappearing architect. ............ 45
Professors as harbingers of hope ................. 47
Urban development and the housing problem ...... 50
Influences from abroad. ....................... 52
ABC theory ............................... 52
For or against Le Corbusier .................... 55
Ist CIAM in La Sarraz ........................ 57
Broken resistance............................ 59
Experiments with building... .................. 61
... and housing developments................... 62
Memorable moments in civil engineering ......... 66
Careers abroad.............................. 68
Acceptance and trivialisation of Neues Bauen. ...... 70
Landi style and realist Sachliches Bauen ........... 77
4 Modernity in practice: a potential majority choice? . . . . 81
Geneva renaissance and Swiss-German dreams ...... 82
Standardisation and low-income housing .......... 88
Swiss concepts of space ....................... 92
Housing, space and identity ................... 94
Sculptural and organic building ................ 97
Structure and technology ..................... 99
The crisis of 'modern academism' .............. 106
5 Rational building in the Ticino. Form and setting ....109
Building and its context... . . .... . .... . . ...... 109
Resistance as common denominator. ............no
The quest for the (urban) setting ............... 114
Trends in theTicino.. . .... . .. . .... . . ... . . ... n
Fame and fatigue . . . . . .. . . .. . . .. . . .. . ... . ... 119
6 The descendants of NeuesBauen.
Modernity as style ............................121
Nostalgia, politics and autonomous architecture .... 121
Typology and architecture as image. ............. 122
Back to the roots of modernity. ................ 130
Museum of the finely worked detail? ............133
Bodies, openings and space .................... 13
Moods and images.......................... 140
Construction and transparency................. 146
Modern architecture, Swiss style ................ 133
Bibliography . ... . ... . ... . ... . ... . ... . ... . .. . 156
Periodicals, exhibition venues, schools, professional associations ...................... 160
Index of names.............................. 164