Christoph Gantenbein – författare

Typology, Review No. 2 of the new series Christ & Gantenbein Review, presents more than 150 buildings located in Rome, New York, Hong Kong and Buenos Aires that have been analysed by the chair of Emanuel Christ and Christoph Gantenbein at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich. This selective and subjective inventory of metropolitan and essentially anonymous 20th-century building production provides a basis for urban project creation. In this new book, the buildings are documented with floor plans, axonometric projections, recent photographs and key information. The theoretical essay by Emanuel Christ and Christoph Gantenbein and four texts by other authors explain the interactions between the contexts, especially the governing urban rule sets and the buildings, and show the potential for the design of a contemporary urban architecture.Text in English and German

Typology 2 follows up on the preceding and successful Typology, published in 2012. Emanuel Christ and Christoph Gantenbein together with their teaching staff and students at ETH Zurich expanded their research on building typology to four more metropolises, again in Europe, Latin America, and Asia: Paris, Delhi, Sao Paulo, and Athens. 180 buildings were analysed over the past two years to find inspiration and models that can be adapted for the local context of any given city. Each example is documented with an image, site and floor plans, axonometric projection, key data, and a brief description. An introduction and four essays on the interaction between various protagonists and in particular the effect of governing local building regulation again show the potential for contemporary urban architecture. The result is again a rich sourcebook of great practical value for students, lecturers and practitioners of architecture. Essays by the authors, and Anupam Bansal and Philippe Simon.

Lux Guyer (1894–1955) was the first female architect to establish her own studio in Switzerland in 1924. One of her key designs is the Obere Schiedhalde, a single-family home above Küsnacht near Zurich. Completed in 1929 and temporarily occupied by Guyer and her family themselves, it is a variation on her legendary SAFFA-Haus of 1928. Between 2012 and 2018, the building itself as well as the surrounding garden were extensively and carefully restored by Basel-based architecture firm Christ & Gantenbein together with Sven Richter, co-founder of Richter Tobler Architects in Basel. Working in close collaboration with the Canton of Zurich’s office for the preservation of historic monuments, they also called in experts for a historically conscious overhaul of the building’s interior design, colour scheme, furniture, and garden design.Together with the current owners, the architects made it their mission to not only preserve this significant architectural monument of Swiss Modernism, but also make it accessible to the public through this book. Conceived by graphic designers Ludovic Balland and Annina Schepping, it offers an in-depth documentation of the renovated Obere Schiedhalde. Some 200 photographs of the house, garden, interior details, and furniture, as well as historic and newly drawn plans are supplemented with texts in German and English that tell the story of the building and the entire undertaking of its restoration.Text in English and German.

This highly anticipated new volume in the Review series documents some 200 largely unpublished buildings in Tashkent, Genoa, Tbilisi, and Casablanca. These cities experienced rapid development during the 20th century, with each offering its unique response to modernism. Rather than merely providing a historical survey, this book uncovers the underlying logic of these cities’ urban fabric through an examination of their prevalent built heritage.Over four years, architects Emanuel Christ and Christoph Gantenbein, together with teaching staff and students at their joint chair of architecture and design at ETH Zurich’s Department of Architecture, analysed the featured structures to offer a wide-ranging array of original typological solutions for contemporary architecture and urban design. Each example is documented with an image, site and floor plans, axonometric projection, key data, and a brief description. An introductory text by Emanuel Christ, Victoria Easton, and Christoph Gantenbein relates the case studies to the theoretical framework of type and typology. Concise essays by Shukur Askarov and Boris Chukovich (Tashkent), Vittorio Pizzigoni and Valter Scelsi (Genoa), Levan Kalandarishvili and Jesse Vogler (Tbilisi), and Lahbib El Moumni and Karim Rouissi (Casablanca) explore the four cities’ historic evolution. A photo essay with colour images capturing the urban atmosphere of the places rounds off this volume.