ETH Zürich Hauptgebäude
Domed nineteenth-century polytechnic hall with a sgraffito facade of Art and Science flanking a Latin motto.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to the ETH Zürich Hauptgebäude traces the strange path of its architect, Gottfried Semper, who in 1849 was on the barricades of Dresden alongside his friend Richard Wagner during an uprising against the Saxon army. When the revolt collapsed, Semper fled as a wanted man, and it was Wagner who later wrote to him about a teaching post in Zurich. You'll hear how the opera-house designer approached a science building like a stage, and who painted the facade's figures of Art and Science above the entrance. Look up at the north facade before you go in, where a line from Seneca is framed right beside them.
This audio guide was created using AI.
Similar places
Zürich Opera House
Grand nineteenth-century theatre rebuilt after a fire, opened as Europe's first electrically lit opera house.
Tonhalle Zürich
Lakeside concert hall with acclaimed acoustics, built where a fugitive composer once demanded a proper stage.
Pavillon Le Corbusier
Steel-and-glass exhibition pavilion with a free-floating roof, the last building designed by a pioneering modernist architect.
Zürich's Town Hall
Baroque riverside seat of government with gilded portal lions and a preserved seventeenth-century council chamber.