Pictorial Worlds – serie

The Image Archive of the main library at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH-Bibliothek) is home to a vast collection of photographs. It includes material collected by professors and other staff at the ETH, images created and collected by institutes and chairs within the ETH, but also the entire archives of companies or other institutions, such as Switzerland s legendary former national airline Swissair (1931 - 2001), or private collections bequeathed to ETH-Bibliothek. The aim of the new book series Pictorial Worlds. Photographs from the ETH-Bibliothek's Image Archive is to build a bridge between analytical treatment of historical image sources and the interest in individual photographs for any possible reason.One of the collections held at the Image Archive has been put together by Swiss entrepreneur Adolf Feller (1879 - 1931) and his daughter Elisabeth (1910 - 1973). Unique in size, scope and period covered, it comprises 54,000 postcards from 1889 - 1980. It documents comprehensively what can be called the 'Golden Age' of picture postcards before World War I, with its enormous diversity of motifs, radical changes of style in design and of the era when postcards had their heyday as a communication medium. The collection's main focus is on images of individual sites, places and landscapes in 140 countries. Around 15,000 motifs are from Switzerland. The period best represented in the collection is from 1893 - 1930.The World in Pocket-size Format is a documentation of this magnificent collection. The book is also an illustrated history of this means of communication that has had its time of utmost importance in human relationships.Text in English and German.

Aerial photography had a special place in the business of the legendary former Swiss airline Swissair. Walter Mittelholzer (1894-1937), aviation pioneer and one of Swissair's founders, trained as a photographer before turning to aviation. The airline had a specialised subsidiary, Swissair Photo AG, producing well over 100,000 pictures between 1931-2001, when Swissair ceased operations, and still exists as an independent enterprise, BSF Swissphoto. The photographs show landscapes, towns and villages, and mountains, but also industrial plants, infrastructures, and individual buildings in Switzerland and abroad.Swissair - Aerial Photography features around 300 striking, beautiful and informative images, revealing changes in landscape and settlements over nearly a century. It is also an inventory of lost elements making a landscape, untamed rivers, orchards, receding glaciers or vanished historical buildings that shows how an idyllic agricultural country turned into one of the most densely inhabited places over a few decades. With an introductory essay that explores the content of the collection now held at ETH Bibliothek and what can be read from these images today, Swissair - Aerial Photography provides an illuminating look at the history of aerial photography in Switzerland.Text in English and German.

Comet Photo AG was founded in Zürich 1952 to supply images to local and national media. The agency quickly built a reputation for both the documentary and aesthetic quality of its photographers' work, with the 1950s and 1960s arguably marking the culmination their achievements. Commercially, Comet Photo's heyday were the 1960s and 1970s, followed by a slow decline eventually leading to its closing-down in 1999. Comet Photo's legacy of around 1m images is now kept at ETH Zürich's Image Archive. Photo Mosaic Switzerland features some 150 images from the Comet Photo collection, documenting the rapid changes Switzerland underwent during the 20th century's later decades. They are arranged by topic, such as change and modernisation, industry, agriculture, the vanishing and vanished, the traditional and timeless, celebrities and glamour, or major events. An introductory essay tells the story of Comet Photo AG and its work and legacy, placing it among its competitors national and international, and looks also at Switzerland's social and cultural history from the 1950s to the end of the 20th century.Text in English and German. Also available in the Pictorial Worlds series: Science in Sight ISBN 9783858813954 Swissair Souvenirs ISBN 9783858813596 The World in Pocket-size Format ISBN 9783858813398

Walter Mittelholzer (1894-1937), pioneer of aviation and co-founder of Switzerland's legendary airline Swissair, is chiefly revered as an accomplished aerial photographer. His spectacular views of the Swiss Alps have been very popular ever since he began publishing them in the 1920s. Much lesser known today are his expeditions by plane to distant places. In his day, he proved to be a keen marketer, selling the images he took on travels to Spitsbergen (Svalbard today), Persia (Iran), and Abyssinia (Ethiopia) in his self-written books, in movies, and to the press. His 1926/27 trans-Africa journey on the seaplane Switzerland from Zurich via Alexandria to Capetown made his name known internationally, both as an aviator and a photographer. Well-respected entrepreneurs and bankers funded Mittelholzer's undertakings, supporting his goal to promote air travel in Switzerland. The entire Mittelholzer archive is now held as part of ETH Bibliothek's special collections in Zurich.This latest volume in the Pictorial Worlds series revaluates Mittelholzer's media activity from today's perspective. It features some 200 of his outstanding photographs. The complementing essay looks at the patronising view of Africa and its people and cultures the aviator-photographer maintained and provides an account of the colonialist backdrop of Swissairss lift-off in 1931.Text in English and German.