Bürkliplatz

This guide to Bürkliplatz in Zurich follows the engineer Arnold Bürkli, who resigned his safe city job in 1881 to bet his career on turning open lake into solid ground. You'll hear where the fill came from, torn-down medieval fortifications, railway spoil from Riesbach, debris from towns up and down the shore, all converging on one stretch of water, and why almost none of Zurich's lakefront had ever belonged to the public before. The square did not take his name until 1908, fourteen years after he died.