Master’s Thesis HS25
In Cooperation with the Chair of Architecture and Design, Prof. Emanuel Christ and Christoph Gantenbein
Teaching Team: Silke Langenberg, Emanuel Christ, Thierry Vuattoux, Salome Schepers
PROTECTION is one of the most primal and fundamental motivations of human construction. To protect from external influences, architecture has always been an expression of the need for security and is therefore anchored in material, social and cultural terms. In today’s context of an increasingly fragile environment, characterised by geopolitical uncertainty, technological upheaval and tangible ecological threats, the need for protection and the safety of people and cultural heritage is once again becoming the focus of architectural considerations.
Since spring 2022, the Federal Office for Civil Protection has been talking about a turning point in security policy – with consequences for the built environment. The systematic construction of shelters (Schutzräume), which has been practised in Switzerland since the 1960s, is once again coming into focus after this practice has been increasingly questioned in the recent past. But what does Civil protection mean and what is the subject of potential threats in our context today and tomorrow? What does it include apart from the current understanding of building underground bunkers?
Especially since the last pandemic, we know that PROTECTION has many faces. Some are unexpected, others are deeply rooted in our cultural institutions or the state’s organisational structure, such as the civil service department (Zivilschutz), which provides the infrastructure and means to alert the population or carry out repair work in the case of natural disasters, as they regularly occur in the Alps. PROTECTION therefore concerns not only people, but also ways of life, material and immaterial cultural assets, places, communities or rituals – in short, civilisation.
The question of the design goes ultimately beyond the idea of a place of retreat. It can be understood as an abstract concept of enclosure, a boundary, a gesture of preservation or a platform for negotiating what is worth protecting. Here we debate purpose and multipurpose for sustainable design strategies and look for answers and possibilities of expression as a design task, in the discourse for PROTECTION of civil and cultural values.