Earth, Soil and the Modern Afropolis
February 26–May 9, 2025
Visualising Sigfried Giedion’s Modernism in Chinese Book Culture 1952–1982
February 26–April 4, 2025
Join us for two openings on February 25, 2025 at 5pm! Reflecting on modern architecture in non-Western contexts, two upcoming exhibitions engage with research and art. Inspired by the Chinese proverb “Look at a leopard through a pipe—you can see one spot,” one exhibition offers a glimpse into the processes of bookmaking. The other, Built from Dust, centres on the reconstruction of Agadir after a devastating earthquake in 1960, bringing together archives and voices that reflect on urban transformation across the African continent.
Built from Dust: Earth, Soil and the Modern Afropolis
February 26–May 9, 2025
Conference: February 25, 10 am–4 pm; Opening: 5–8pm
ETH Zurich, Hönggerberg
The reconstruction of Agadir became a showcase for the aspirations, potentials and capacities of post-independence Morocco. International architects experimented with ultramodern and traditional forms of living to create an original urban reality: a new African city, a modern Afropolis. As part of nation-building and world-making efforts, many modern cities were born in post-independence Africa; Agadir was no exception. The exhibition creates a forum for discussing the capacities and challenges of the Afropolis, reflecting not only on the often untold history of these African cities, but also holding up a mirror to the complex and frequently contested urban realities they have created.
The work by the artists Younes Benslimane, M’barek Bouhchichi and Lungiswa Gqounta, the architects Salima Naji and Alexander Cyrus Poulikakos, and researchers working on African cities as diverse as Casablanca, Algiers, Addis Ababa, Kinshasa and Accra will explore how urbanisation in Africa, sparked by colonialism in the nineteenth century and accelerated by industrialisation and modernisation in the twentieth century, has led to the rise of large urban centres in a decolonising world. By rethinking the potentialities of earth architecture and the natural ecosystems entailed, the artists’ works seem to advocate for a critical reassessment of the legacy of modernist architecture, seeking for resilient and viable cohabitations.
Conference speakers include Tom Avermaete, M’barek Bouhchichi, Madeleine de Colnet, Kenny Cupers, Lahbib El Moumni, Sara Frikech, Lungiswa Gqunta, Hannah le Roux, Morad Montazami, Nadya Rouizem Labied, Giulia Scotto, Ola Uduku and Maxime Zaugg.
Look at a Leopard Through a Pipe: Visualising Sigfried Giedion’s Modernism in Chinese Book Culture 1952–1982
February 26–April 4, 2025
Opening: February 25, 5–8pm
ETH Zurich, Hönggerberg, Foyer
Special event: February 27, 5:30pm
Modern architecture, introduced in China at the end of the nineteenth century, gradually replaced traditional construction methods. At Tongji University, a team was set up in the 1950s to focus on “Occidental” and foreign countries. It produced a series of textbooks aimed at reconstructing narratives within a Marxist and Maoist framework. Their work culminated in the national textbook Modern History of Architecture in Foreign Countries (1982), which had long dominated the teaching of architectural history in China. A newly produced artist’s book by the exhibition space Chickentown will present drawings by _ao_ao_ing ensemble, WANG Jie Yin, ZHANG Yuanyuan, Urban Zellweger and more.
Speakers at the special event with talk and apéro include WANG Yulin, Almut Grunewald, Andreas Kalpakci, Matthew Critchley, Laurent Stalder, LU Di and LU Yongyi.
The exhibitions are generously supported by the D-ARCH (Department of Architecture), the Embassy of Switzerland in Morocco, the Embassy of Morocco in Switzerland, Ernst Schweizer AG, the Swiss Red Cross and the Artist-In-Residence Program made possible by the Thomas and Doris Ammann Foundation.