“Schwamendingen is Berlin’s Neukölln. Schwamendingen is a suburb. Schwamendingen is Genoa Pra’. Schwamendingen is a code. A flavor.” This apt description by Ruth Erdt is compellingly brought to life in the almost 650 photographs in this book. Yes, Schwamendingen lies on the outskirts of Zurich, a peripheral district like so many others across the world. But it is also a phenomenon: defiant, proud, forged through love. People may mock it, yet newcomers hardly ever want to leave.

Incorporated into Zurich in 1934, Schwamendingen first developed into a garden city linking the center with its new outlying industrial zone, before ultimately becoming what is perhaps the most progressive district in greater Zurich. With relatively low crime rates and a population almost 50 per cent non-Swiss, Schwamendingen is today a remarkably easy-going and popular place to live. The motorway that cut through it for 40 long years is now being covered over—“enclosed” as the publicity materials put it—protecting residents from the noise of 120,000 vehicles every day. Inevitably, architectural densification is already under way, and the hope is that gentrification will not follow too soon. Whatever the outcome, Erdt takes us on a wild, kinetic, hot-and-cold ride through Schwamendingen, this proud peripheral district of K12.

Exhibition:
Kunsthalle Zürich, 28 September 2024 to 19 January 2025