The pupils worked in the drafting room on practical assignments, competed in rivalries and contributed to Sempers's own projects.

Semper succeeded in changing the title of the degree from ‘master builder’ to ‘architect’, but he nonetheless failed to extend the three-year duration of studies.

1864: The Building School relocates to the newly built polytechnic, erected according to plans by Semper, where it occupies the ground floor of the north and west wings.

1881: With the appointment of Friedrich Bluntschli – an esteemed architect in the tradition of Semper, albeit far more formalistic – the instruction focuses entirely on the Renaissance vocabulary.

1914: With Bluntschli's retirement, instruction in the classical vocabulary is largely curtailed, finally ending in 1925 with the appointment of Friedrich Hess as the successor to Lasius.

1929: After Moser's retirement (1928) as well as Gull's restructuring and the reformation of the architecture division by his successors, Otto Rudolf Salvisberg and William Dunkel: To avoid the coexistence of competing architectural ideas, the instruction is divided into a succession of two-semester courses, each of which is overseen by a single professor and which comprise tasks that are progressively more complex.

The teaching staff is expanded, and now includes visiting professors like Georges Candilis, Ralph Erskine, Jørn Utzon and Aldo Rossi (1972–1974), whose design methodologies have been influential until very recently.

1980s: In light of the pluralism of international architecture and through ETH's own research, the supposedly clear profile of the school, based on modernism, is increasingly called into question.