ZAZ BELLERIVE – CENTER OF ARCHITECTURE ZURICH

The interdisciplinary platform for building culture education in Zurich

What role do city, space and architecture play in our lives – now and in the future?

The ZAZ BELLERIVE Zentrum Architektur Zürich is an open meeting place, exhibition space, event and mediation center for questions of building culture. It reflects on the perception of architecture through the public discourse of urban development and spatial planning, shedding light on questions of architectural theory and history in relation to society and urban development. With its temporary exhibitions, discussion events and lectures, ZAZ BELLERIVE has been aimed at both the general public and specialist audiences since its inception and its program focuses on current discourses on the urban environment and further territorial development.

As a competence center for building culture, the platform maintains diverse collaborations with educational and research institutions, cultural institutions, associations and various stakeholders and interest groups. ZAZ BELLERIVE contributes to the promotion of building culture education and participation through participatory mediation formats and raises interdisciplinary awareness of issues relating to the quality of our living spaces with guided tours and workshops.

(MONUMENT) – CARE [AT]

The ZAZ BELLERIVE Center for Architecture Zurich is taking the Year of Monument Protection as an opportunity to address the care of materials and the preservation of building fabric as part of an exhibition and educational project in autumn 2025.

Material cannot be replaced. Not even those that we neglect or disregard, demolish and dispose of. Every component has an inherent value and multiple stories. Which ones do we want to tell?

Against the backdrop of heritage conservation as an actor in a repair society, the project focuses on alternative value attribution processes. Hidden background stories of components are uncovered and show how they can be used to attribute an intangible cultural heritage to banal and standardized components, away from common narratives. The objects, which originate from component exchanges and the inventory of monument preservation, bring monument preservation practices to the fore and illustrate how these are increasingly intertwined with processes of the circular economy

Further information on the program will follow on ZAZ Bellerive.