Department / Institute: Prof. Dr. Tom Avermaete
Doctoral Fellowship in History and Theory of Architecture (2 positions)
LUS Doctoral Crits HS24
History and Theory of Architecture VIII: Seen from the South
A new core theory course for master’s students taught for the third time in spring 2025 argues that the list of ‘great’ cities needs to be rethought. Given the diversity of urbanisms around the world, it would be a disservice to limit one’s perspective to theoretical notions originating Mehr
Baukultur back to the future
Grundlagen: Vitrinen. A Zürich Lexicon
Urban Codes and Urban Forms: The Case of Zurich
LUS Doctoral Crits AS 2024 & Book Launch
Spielraum & Öffentlicher Raum (lecture) | Public Space: The Real and the Ideal (journal presentation)
Listening In: Conversations on Architectures, Cities and Landscapes, 1700-1900 – Programme and Abstracts
Codes and Conventions for Future Zurich: A Propositional Planning Approach to Qualitative Densification
This 4-year project uniquely combines historical and design-led research to explore urban strategies for housing the anticipated 25% population increase that Zurich is facing in the next 20 years. A ‘retroactive analysis’ of the historical evolution of building codes, as well as of the specific urban types and Mehr
City of Codes
The city of Zurich is a testament to the incredible power of urban codes and their influence on urban form. From the mid-nineteenth onwards, these codes, such as building laws, norms, standards, or even municipal constitutions, shaped and reshaped the city into what it is today. The research Mehr
Symposium ‘Drawing the Urban’
‘Baukultur und Recht’
Symposium of Urban Design History and Theory (SUDHT)
Design Studios as «Communities of Tacit Knowledge»
Much of what architecture students learn in the studio is «tacit knowledge.» They develop the skills and sensibilities of architectural and urban design with practice, often under the supervision of instructors and peers, not by studying textbooks. Yet, despite its importance, we know relatively little about how this Mehr
La Norme d’Agadir – Un Urbanisme sur Mesure (Exhibition) & Agadir – Building the Modern Afropolis (Book Launch)
Writing Urban Landscapes of the Anthropocene
History and Theory of Architecture VIII: Seen from the South
Tacit Knowledge in Architecture
Unlocking the ‘Contact Zone’. Towards a New Historiography of Architecture
This research project seeks to develop a new method of writing the history of post-WWII architecture, reflecting the complexities of globalisation and its influence on the built environment. The project investigates an alternative historiographic approach by organising history around cross-cultural ‘contact zones’. This term was first used by Mehr
Unlocking a Multidisciplinary Discourse on Architecture and the City
This research project sets out to develop a new methodology of crossing disciplinary perspectives with the goal of unlocking a multidisciplinary historiography of architecture. It is based on the conviction that something fundamentally new can be learned from the exchanges that architects have had with other disciplines.
Agadir. Building the Modern Afropolis
Writing Landscapes, Writing the Urban
Repository
www.avermaete.repository.ethz.ch is an open repository for the chair’s education, research, and publication activities. Next to the chair’s Instagram account, the website informs and inspires students and professionals using graphic material and represents each team member. The website also contains a virtual exhibition space on, for example, the student Mehr
The City in Theory – Her Agency
This seminar follows the work and life of a series of «female professionals» (architects, politicians, urban designers, journalists, editors, curators, philanthropists, etc.) in the post-war era who started to critically engage in discussions on urban design and actively contribute to the design of cities. By fully acknowledging the contributions Mehr
Modern Architect and Migrant in the Australian Tropics
Despite a European training and an early career working with Peter Behrens, a migration from Vienna to the Australian state of Queensland positioned the architect Karl Langer (1903-1969) at the very edge of both European and Australian modernism. Confronted by tropical heat and glare, the economics of affordable Mehr
Works and Ideas in Danish Modern Architecture
Kay Fisker (1893-1965) is considered one of the most influential Danish architects of the twentieth century, and yet there has existed until now no in-depth English-language study of his works and writing. Fisker’s output is closely associated with the functional tradition, a hybridization of international modernism and regional architectural Mehr
The Modern Architect as Public Intellectual
Architect Ernesto Nathan Rogers (1909-1969) was a towering figure in 20th-century Italian architecture, with a significant impact at the international level. Through the work of his collaborative firm (Banfi Belgiojoso Peressutti Rogers, or BBPR), the editorship of publications such as Domus and Casabella, and his teaching at the Mehr
Theme Issue ‘Modernities’, OASE 109. Journal for Architecture
Tête-à-Tête Lectures: Material Commons
The City in Theory: Her Agency
Call for Lost Entries: Shinkenchiku Residential Design Competition ARCHIVE
Urban Design in the 20th Century: A History
Conceptualising ‘Cultural Landscape Commons’: Retracing Ecological Thinking from the Swiss Alpine Landscape to Social-Ecological Systems
This paper retraces the fundaments of the ‘nature-culture’ divide within the study of Swiss alpine ‘cultural landscape commons’, showing how this notion was shaped by early ecological thinking expressed through environmental determinism, dynamic systems, and cultural ecology. These fields of research are seen as precursors to some of the Mehr
Irrigation Commons: What Lessons for Sustainable Risk Mitigation?
Swiss agricultural commons have overseen the management of pastures, forests, and water in the Alps for centuries. In Canton Valais, the historic irrigation systems have shaped the cultural landscape of the region as a whole. The resilience of these channels rests in part on their ability to mitigate Mehr
Call for Lost Entries: The Shinkenchiku Residential Design Competition, 1965-2020
Gemeinschaftliche Bodennutzung: Wohnsiedlungen und die europäische Stadt, 1865–1930
Das aktuelle Postdoc-Forschungsprojekt konzentriert sich auf die Beziehung zwischen Städten und städtischen Wohnsiedlungen, beziehungsweise Ensembles von zwei oder mehr, mittel- bis hochverdichteten, primär zu Wohnzwecken genutzten Gebäuden, die zur gleichen Zeit und mit gemeinsamer Verwaltung konzipiert wurden. Die frühesten Wohnsiedlungen wurden als Inseln der Hygiene und des Anstands Mehr
Architektonische Kompetenz in einer gemeinsamen Welt
Architektur und Städtebau sind Aktivitäten, die in einen sozial-räumlichen und politischen Kontext eingebettet sind. Susan Fainstein, Harvardprofessorin für Stadtplanung, hinterfragt deshalb die Theorien der Planung – und damit auch der Architektur- und Stadtgestaltung – , um sich mit diesen Beziehungen zu befassen: Wie wirkt sich die Intervention und Mehr
Der scharfe Blick des reisenden Architekten: Photographie aus dem Blickwinkel des fahrenden Autos
Dieses Forschungsprojekt untersucht den Aspekt der Photographien, die Architekten während ihren Autofahrten machen. Es beruht auf der Hypothese, dass der Blick aus dem Auto eine neue Epistemologie der urbanen Landschaft und des gesamten Raums entstehen liess. Wenn wir uns auf die Photographien konzentrieren, die von den untersuchten Architekten Mehr
Aufbau der Commons. Eine etwas andere Architekturgeschichte der europäischen Stadt
Alternative Prinzipien der gemeinsamen Nutzung von Ressourcen finden in politischen Kreisen und insgesamt in der Gesellschaft vermehrt Beachtung. Einige dieser als “Commons” bezeichneten Themen sind in den letzten Jahrzehnten immer mehr durch Akademiker in der kritischen Stadtforschung, Stadtgeographie und den Sozialwissenschaften beachtet worden. Tatsächlich macht die Untersuchung der Mehr
Die Welt der Architektur: die stillschweigende Dimension in der neueren Architekturpädagogik an der ETH Zürich
Die stillschweigende Dimension der Architekturpädagogik – die die Studierenden dann zwar beim Entwerfen anwenden, aber nur schwer erklären können – ist nach wie vor nur unzureichend untersucht und mit methodologischen Schwierigkeiten belastet. Bereits bestehende Berichte betonen isolierte Studioprojekte oder kognitive Prozesse, die allzu oft den jeweiligen kulturellen, historischen Mehr
Erforschung von Modellen städtischen Massstabs: Die Projets Urbains und die Funktion der Maquette, von den 1960er Jahren bis heute
Es gibt nur wenig Forschung zu stadtmassstäblichen Modellen. In der Forschung werden sie oft mit Architekturmodellen in einen Topf geworfen. Obwohl Stadtmodelle sicherlich Charakteristika besitzen, die denen von Architekturmodellen gleichen, unterscheiden sie sich auch. Der Hauptunterschied besteht darin, so die Hypothese dieses Forschungsprojekts, dass bei Modellen im städtischen Mehr
Histories of Urban Design: Global Trajectories and Local Realities
Baukultur und die Stadt
The «Contact Zone» of Agadir’s 1960 Emergency Aid Programme
The reconstruction of the Moroccan city of Agadir in the immediate aftermath of the devastating 1960 earthquake is an exemplary yet much overlooked cross-cultural «contact zone» between local and international rescuers, experts, citizens, organizations, and governments. Studying why the development aid Morocco received was not unconditionally accepted, but Mehr
TACK Talks: How to? A Guide Through Knowing
Writing Model Histories
12 May, 10:00–13:00 | Colloquium | online. Invited Lecturers: Professor Dr. Thea Brejzek, School of Archi- tecture, University of Technology, Sydney; Professor Dr. Mari Lending, Oslo School of Architecture and Design; Dr. Matthew Wells, Institute for the History and Theory of Architecture (gta), ETH Zurich.
Writing Automobile Histories
Colloquium: 5 March, 15:00–18:00 | online. Workshop: 5 March, 18:30–20:30 | online. The colloquium aims to untie the specificity of car travel as a new episteme, addressing issues related to the emergence of the new perceptual regimes that emerged thanks to the automobile.