The urban fabric of Zurich can be read as an amalgamation of different ideologies of what city is, of how living in the city is and was defined. Never before however, has a new ideology of urban planning affected so much of the existing, destroyed so much of the built substance.
The dogmatic approach of densification very often results in a complete disappearance of what’s there.
The Buildings of the Baugenossenschaft im Gut are one of many examples of that process, in which low density housing of the 50s has to make way to more dense housing schemes.
The ‚Ausnützungsreserven‘ seem to be the only determining factor of value of the built substance, if something is kept or demolished.
But what other actors, what other ways of defining value are there, and could those other definitions become leading factors in dealing with the past?