Dear Visitor,
This exhibition is dedicated to a small, aluminium-clad pavilion, built by the Swiss architect Berta Rahm for the Saffa 58 and the powerful collective action that it has attracted. Prior to being placed in the gta exhibition space, the pavilion was located on the grounds of a mushroom farm outside Zurich. Its aged and slightly dilapidated state is the result of the dissipation of its utility and importance over the decades, the exhibition celebrating its saving from imminent demolition in spring of 2020.
The cantonal civic-monuments commission luckily ascertained that the aluminum-clad pavilion was a rare project by Berta Rahm, prompting them to alert the SNSF Saffa1958 research group who had started investigations into the Saffa 58 exhibition (Schweizerische Ausstellung für Frauenarbeit 1958-the Swiss Woman’s Work Exhibition 1958), hitherto a blind spot in the history of Swiss art and architecture. The committed female researchers initiated a rescue operation, thus thankfully saving the pavilion and its history from oblivion.
In order to gather the necessary expertise and workforce to accomplish the task, the researchers activated their network to reach out to architects and monument conservationists, resulting in the foundation of the ProSaffa1958-Pavillon Association, with the remit to rescue, secure, and rebuild the pavilion in a central and public location. To their initial dismay, the beginning of the operation coincided with the national lockdown in response to the spread of Covid-19 in Switzerland, but nevertheless was successfully concluded despite the constraints.
Thanks to voluntary work, generous donations, and widespread support, the pavilion was successfully dismantled and brought to storage near Basel in just two months. Despite, or indeed because of its near-scrape with destruction, it happily embodies a sense of collective endeavor and hopes for the future— a future in which women architects are an integral and inherent part of the stories that are told and re-told.
The exhibition is correspondingly dedicated to exploring the diverse range of themes, stories, and actors revolving around the pavilion, all of them more entangled and far-reaching than first meets the eye. We exhibit the pavilion in fragments, both re- and disassembled, in order to underline its current state of transition between storage and the potential of being rebuilt. In so doing, the inserted, fragmented pavilion creates new spaces within an exhibition area, forming a locus that will be used throughout the year for education, discourse, and restoration.
Departing from the materiality of the pavilion itself, a series of exhibition stages and events structured around overarching topics will take place throughout the year with the intention to engage and involve the community at the ETH’s Department of Architecture, and beyond, in a journey that unfolds from within the life and work of Berta Rahm, a woman fighting for her voice in the architectural field, extending to include the feminist engagement that evolved around the saving of the pavilion, akin, intentionally, to a fungi mycelium.
Your exhibition team, Milena Buchwalder, Sonja Flury, Dorothee Hahn, and Larissa Müllner, on behalf of the ProSaffa1958-Pavillon Association
Auszug aus der Ausstellungsbroshüre
Die Ausstellung war vom 9. März – 10. Dezember 2021 im Raum der gta Ausstellungen an der ETH Zürich auf dem Hönggerberg zu sehen. Sie wurde kuratiert von Milena Buchwalder, Sonja Flury, Dorothee Hahn und Larissa Müllner im Namen des Vereins ProSaffa1958-Pavillon; in Zusammenarbeit mit den Direktoren der gta Ausstellungen Fredi Fischli und Niels Olsen.
gta exhibitions team: Sabine Sarwa, Daniel Sommer, Lisa Boos
Proofreading: Thomas Skelton-Robinson, Stephen Yiavasis
Grafik Design: Teo Schifferli
Realization of exhibition: Tobias Metzger, Hannes Jedele, Flora Bühlmann, Caspar Bultmann Simona Mele, Jeremy Waterfield, Nathalia Hofmann
Fotos Ausstellung: Nelly Rodriguez
Fotos Events: Jana Jenarin, Simona Mele
https://www.ausstellungen.gta.arch.ethz.ch/de/exhibitions/the-power-of-mushrooms
https://www.baunetz.de/meldungen/Meldungen-Ausstellung_in_Zuerich_7551896.html