The return was part of the Holdings of ETH Zurich Architectural Culture project, run by the Real Estate Management department. It coincided with the collection of scientific instruments and teaching materials in the ETH Library.
Holdings of Architectural Culture at ETH
When a historical (and often listed) ETH building is renovated, sometimes certain features and furnishings have to be removed, despite their value in representing the craftsmanship and culture of the era in which they were created.
Before any structural changes are made, these priceless testimonies to architectural history are identified on site, recorded and stored centrally. In 2020 the Real Estate Management department established the Holdings of Architectural Culture inventory to carry out this process. Its purpose is to procure and document furnishings, fittings and representative building components.
Anastasia Paschou is the Project Manager, she says: “We have scoured the basements at ETH and discovered hundreds of objects from earlier construction periods. We’ve collected them in a repository, documented them thoroughly and tried to tell their story online, focusing on the history of how they were fashioned or installed and how ETH has changed.”
