Throughout the events, lessons have been collected from the Salons and the Biennale as a whole. The Salon Suisse Closing Weekend from 20 to 22 November 2014 is an attempt to sum up and reflect, structure and organize. It is also an editorial meeting for a planned publication in which the audience is invited to join.
To round off the last day, all guests are invited to a party with DJ Toru!
«Salon Suisse»: The next 100 Years – Scenarios for an Alpine City State, Collateral Event of the 14th International Architecture Exhibition - la Biennale di Venezia.
The modern nation of Switzerland was founded in 1848 as a federation of historic city-states and alpine valley cantons. They represent the central nodes and connecting corridors of a much older and larger urban network stretching across the European continent. Their tributary territories had been forcefully liberated by the French during the years of the Helvetic Republic and joined the federation as independent cantons.
In the rest of Europe reactionary politics were regaining control. Meanwhile, our liberal somewhat backward enclave at its heart concentrated pragmatically on installing the infrastructures and institutions that still underpin its success today: railroads, banks, insurance services or the Federal Institute of Technology (ETH). The Swiss stubbornly resisted the accumulation of urban mass as well as of political power and built a federated, polycentric country held together by a perfectly oiled clock-work of infrastructure and common sense...
Hiromi Hosoya & Markus Schaefer
Salonniers, Salon Suisse
