Noch Dorf oder schon Stadt?

This dissertation examines the negotiated city-making practices that shaped the urbanisation of Zurich’s outer districts in the first post-war decade. Anchored in the tenure of Stadtbaumeister Albert Heinrich Steiner (1942–1957), this period marked one of the most ambitious phases of coordinated city expansion in Zurich. Built in response to unprecedented housing demand, political consensus, federal subsidies for non-profit housing, and active Bodenpolitik, these neighbourhoods embodied a collective attempt to align housing production with a holistic vision of the future city. The process took the form of a democratic procedure that included municipal offices, cooperatives, architects, landscape architects, lawyers, builders, financiers, civic associations, religious groups and others, seeking compromises that could reflect diverse interests and establish the city as a shared project.

Since the early 2000s, these neighbourhoods have been key sites of transformation. Identified in municipal plans as priority zones for internal densification, they now face renewed housing pressures. Official narratives call for preserving their Gartenstadt character while accommodating growth, and numerous replacement projects and competitions illustrate a wide spectrum of approaches to reinterpretation. Historiography has mainly framed the post-war period through theories, legal structures, or individual figures, often stressing its failure to establish a firm theoretical or legal foundation. The processual and communicative dimensions of collaboration among diverse actors have remained largely overlooked. This dissertation addresses that knowledge gap.

The project focuses on the cultural and communicative dimension of these mechanisms. It examines three interrelated themes: the instruments of communication (publications, exhibitions, media, promotional materials); the arenas of negotiation (council debates, project approval negotiations, interdisciplinary collaborations); and the narratives and vocabularies through which ideas of the future city circulated. By tracing how terms, images, and arguments moved across these settings, the study reveals how collaboration was organised and compromises forged – or at times failed. Consequently, this research presents an alternative urban history of Zurich, shifting attention away from grand theories and individual protagonists to the communicative processes through which the city was debated, mediated, and constructed.

Natalia Voroshilova