RH: Kees Christiaanse, as an urban planner, the world is your playing field. Has Zurich, your new domicile, changed your perspective?

KC: I have always travelled a lot. During my studies in Delft in the seventies, travelling was a way of life for every student. When the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) in Rotterdam was founded with Rem Koolhaas in 1980, we started by designing for international competitions instead of taking the route from a local to a national to an international practice. This reverse method made me travel all over the planet. When OMA‘s design for the Parc de la Villette in Paris finished second, we had teaching and design jobs all over Europe. On one of my journeys I met my wife. She got on the plane in Vienna when I was on my way to Bulgaria. As she was the only woman in a plane filled with Balkan men, we started to talk. That did the job. (laughs)

RH: You married her, your sons were born in Rotterdam, and one fine day, you left Holland for Berlin, and later Berlin for Zurich.

KC: My wife and I almost simultaneously got an invitation to teach in Zurich, at a time when the Technical University of Berlin, where we both lectured, was more or less collapsing under increasing financial pressure. The ETHZ being one of the best architectural schools in Europe, it made Zurich an offer we couldn’t refuse. However, leaving Berlin with our three boys was painful. At first, Zurich seemed too small to be interesting. Swiss-German felt strange, housing was expensive and the school system was extremely difficult for the boys. In the meantime, after three years, we are very happy here.

RH: What made you change your mind?

RH: The feeling of being at home certainly was a gradual process.

KC: Yes it was. It also has a lot to do with the profession of urban design. Urban design is relatively non-existent in Switzerland because the country is not so densely populated. The urban texture here has mainly been the result of the construction of single buildings. To my knowledge, there have never been very complex situations where an old urban quarter had to be completely transformed. Now that Zurich has become an agglomeration with over a million inhabitants, the need to formulate a real urban policy for this area has become apparent. We have more or less fallen into a niche that was open for us.

RH: Your employer, the ETHZ, ranks amongst the 10 best universities of the world. What does that mean for you?

KC: This really is a school where the selection at all levels is taken very seriously. Professors, staff, students, the whole organisational principle is geared towards obtaining the best results. The majority of staff come from abroad. In the Netherlands, academic staff almost always have a fixed job, but here assistants have six-year contracts. So, when you arrive as a new professor you may have to wait a bit, but then you can appoint new people to support your goals. It’s something you can’t take for granted in other European countries – and it creates an atmosphere where quality can prevail.

RH: What is your view on Swiss students? Many of them still live with their parents. Are they as independent as you wish them to be?

KC: Swiss students are very skilled, very hard working but sometimes a little bit over-disciplined. That can be counterproductive to their imagination. There is this cliché about the Swiss being like watchmakers – very meticulous and precise. When I think of my students there is some truth in it. They sometimes have to learn how to network and improve their communication skills.

RH: How do you teach them that?

KC: By teaching them how to work with chaos. Urban design is all about managing a certain chaos. Architecture works with your own aesthetics and order, turning the brief into a beautiful sculpture, into a building. Urban design works with contradictory forces in the urban field. It is a brainstorming process in which all sorts of views and perspectives are permitted and explored. It reveals the complexities, releases the imagination and inspires creativity, which, in turn, enables students to generate ideas and associations that would not normally occur to them.

RH: Is that also the principle you applied to the master plan for Science City?

KC: Yes. kKCAP has a lot of experience with the design of campuses, in the Netherlands, in Belgium. The old concept of a campus, which is meant for academic use only, has become obsolete. For Science City we made a small scale, network design which is very flexible, turning the campus into a living quarter, with coffee shops, housing and working space, taking into account sustainability aspects, like water management, energy saving, green roofs, etc.

RH: Sustainability is a big issue for the Swiss. Popular votes indicate that the Swiss really care about the environment.

RH: Has that been proven true anywhere in the world?

KC: There is a limited amount of purely scientific research on this topic, but there are many books written on the subject, like The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs, who died recently, and Edge City by Joel Garreau or Ladders by Albert Pope. The idea that there is a correlation between urban development and crime is described, for instance, by Mike Davis, city sociologist of Los Angeles, in his book City of Quartz. At the ETHZ, we have developed certain social sustainability criteria that we use when we work in complex urban situations.

RH: We are surrounded by mountains. What does that mean for someone who comes from a flat country below sea level?

KC: My wife being Austrian, I have been used to alpine surroundings for almost twenty years. Today I find it very attractive to be able to escape into nature. I have always liked skiing and hiking. In the Netherlands I was sometimes frustrated not to be able to find real nature anymore. The only way to get away from the civilised world was to set out in your sailing boat, but that’s a bit one-dimensional.

RH: Do you still sail?

KC: I try to, but there’s not a lot of wind here. I have my small boat on the Lake of Zurich, but I’m afraid it feels rather like playing with a toy in a bath tub. These are lakes, it is not the sea. And in Switzerland you need a licence to sail a boat. In the Netherlands anybody can sail, just as anybody can ride a bicycle. I notice the same cultural differences when it comes to ice skating. This winter, I was the only one with speed skates on the Greifensee. Wouldn’t it have been fantastic to clear the ice and make long circuits, allowing people to skate long stretches like we do in Holland? Instead, only a few square metres were cleaned where hundreds of people where making their turns or playing ice-hockey. It looked like a Breughel painting. There are different balances in the relationship between stability and mobility in the cultures of Switzerland and the Netherlands.

RH: Meaning?

KC: Switzerland is a very beautiful country; the soil is stable, you don’t have to build on piles; you don’t have to watch your roads sinking into the mud because they are built on stone. The climate is nice; there is little wind, and comfort is the default option – at least in the non-alpine part of the country. It is a notion that we Dutch are not used to. We are used to fighting with the land, the weather and the wind.

RH: Do the Swiss build in a different manner – having to cope with solid rocks – than people in flat countries?

KC: One hundred years ago the way of building in Portugal, the Netherlands or Switzerland was totally different, depending on the constraints of available local materials and the level of technology. Today we all can use the same materials. The difference in building has become difficult to determine for the superficial eye. However, the value of a house in a socio-cultural sense is still very different in Anglo-Saxon countries from that in middle-European countries. In the UK, Holland or the US, a house is a commodity like a refrigerator or a car that you buy and sell. After five years or so you get rid of it and buy another one. The whole system of financing a house is based on that rotation principle. But in middle European countries like Germany, Austria and Switzerland, real estate is solid capital that is handed down to your children and grandchildren. A house is essentially a step in the gradual accumulation of capital.

RH: Is that good or bad?

RH: This is the only country where road construction is finished before due date. How is that possible?

KC: It is that bottom-up approach to work – very responsible to the last man. The precision and seriousness of the Swiss have a long tradition.

RH: Could it be related to direct democracy? Don’t Swiss people actually have greater power and responsibility?

KC: The Swiss political landscape is small, making the country more easily manageable. Politics is never far away. The scale of the country is not bigger than that of the city of London or the Randstad Holland. Federalism, creating a decentralised political system, has great advantages.

RH: Jean Nouvel said at the opening of his Concert Hall in Lucerne that he had never come across better craftsmen than the Swiss. Would you underscore his praise?

KC: Definitely. Redoing my own house I observed at first hand that the workmen are extremely precise, working very fast and efficiently. They will not stop until the job is done. I think they have a working morale, a concentration and a skill that has been lost in many other countries.

RH: Do you think Switzerland would be better off as part of the EU?

KC: That is a very difficult question. I have mixed feelings about the EU. I think the EU is a good institution, with its single market and single currency, but a lot of legislation and bureaucracy coming from Brussels and Strasbourg is very counterproductive. Sometimes it seems as if it is gradually turning into a Soviet-like system, hindering collaboration rather than stimulating it. It tends to be too much and too complicated. In that respect I understand the reservations of the Swiss.

RH: But in a political sense, Switzerland is seen as irrelevant. The country has observer status in Brussels.

KC: So what? That seems political small talk to me. Switzerland has a large number of well-run global enterprises, headquarters of multinationals and global organisations. The country is a pivotal point for money transfers worldwide and it provides excellent research facilities for international scientists. Switzerland’s systems cannot simply fuse with the EU. And with the current bilateral agreements the Swiss are virtually a member of the EU without having the disadvantages.

RH: What does the Swiss brand mean to you? Do you already have the Swiss label as an urban developer or a professor?

KC: You cannot move too many times in your life. It will take me another five years to build up this institute the way I want it to be. If I want to do a good job at the ETHZ and not disturb the life of my family too much, it is realistic to say that I will spend the rest of my professional life in Switzerland. I have recently decided that KCAP will open an office in Zurich. So, regardless of my Dutch nationality, I will be a Swiss-based architect and professor.

RH: In which direction do you see Switzerland developing in the next few years?

KC: I think that the Swiss have created an infrastructure of great potential and a system of services, which are unequalled. This will continue to attract many people. I have also noticed that the government is serious about supporting innovation and research. In that respect Switzerland is a fertile breeding ground. As the country is small, the Swiss are able to implement their strategies into concrete action pretty easily. There are, for instance, not enough academics to fill the research positions, so a strong influx of knowledge workers is under way. My view on the future here is quite positive.

RH: Do you see yourself obtaining a Swiss passport at some point?

KC: Let’s reverse that. I would not want to lose my Dutch nationality. Travelling all over the world I notice that I have an increasingly emotional relationship with Holland. The longer I live here, the less I want to lose my Dutch passport. And I certainly would not want to miss working in Holland. However, if, as an urban designer in Switzerland, I were to get increasingly involved with complex urban aspects that are imbedded in political activity in Zurich, it could be good to obtain a Swiss passport as well.

RH: Driving up here to the Hönggerberg, I just heard on the radio that Zurich will give us the right to vote at the local level.

KC: (big grin) Well then that takes care of that…