Wittigkofen

Today’s Wittigkofen neighbourhood is the physical remnant of a satellite town project that was presented at Expo 1964 as a pioneering example of urban planning. Art in architecture was not included in the planning or implementation. We will discover how art found its way into the neighbourhood and what qualities the artworks create in conjunction with the built environment in Wittigkofen during a walk with Walter Kretz, Ronny Hardlitz and Danae Winter. A tour of a flat on the 21st floor and a visit to a roof terrace on the 24th floor round off the event.

In his 1988 city walking map of the Upper Murifeld, Benedikt Loderer writes, among other things:

... As late descendants of Le Corbusier’s ‘Ville Radieuse’, the residential towers stand solitary and unspoilt amidst the greenery. The city in the park as a counterpoint to the squalor of tenement blocks, but also to the proliferation of small houses in the garden city. ... This is roughly what the daydreams of two generations of architects looked like. Before us stands what many would have wished to realise. At the outset of an architectural critique of the Upper Murifeld (Wittigkofen), one must tip one’s hat to those who sought more than merely the local norm. ..

... He reflected on two things: the un-Swiss scale of the project and its main success. The Upper Murifeld has not been filled with a mishmash of housing developments. ...

.. There is a significant difference between how the Wittigkofen neighbourhood is viewed by outsiders and how its residents perceive it. The residents appreciate the neighbourhood, but suffer from the poor ratings given to it by those unfamiliar with the area. ..