Swiss Histories: Unruly Images of Switzerland

Tiny, neutral, rural, wealthy, precise, and timely are some of the many attributes (or stereotypes) commonly used to shape our ideas of Switzerland. However, to build (Swiss) histories and myths, attributes inescapably rely on images and their unruly dissemination. An 18th-century print of Wimmis Castle, a postcard promoting a new PostAuto route, the Zurich skyline featured on a poster for a Volksinitiative, and even the contour of the hills and Lake Geneva on a milk bottle all frame expectations of Swiss identity.

Images govern our understandings of reality, transcending their purposes, media, support, and going beyond disciplinary borders. It is only by scrutinizing and contextualizing them that we understand the fragility of ideas they bear and the fundamental role architecture plays in this narrative construction.

The course aims to characterize ideas of the Swiss built and unbuilt environments by means of its images and to understand the media context in which these narratives occur.