G59 – 1st Swiss Horticulture Exhibition

The G59 was set up based on the structure of the German horticulture expositions, which advocated for profession and the reconstruction of cities destroyed in World War II, and of the “Landi”, the Swiss national exhibition in 1939, which created identity during the crises.

Klaus and Walter Leder's draft, “Landhaus und Garten,” was meant to extend the spatial logic that accentuated the garden over the house and to avoid the reverse.

[1] On the right lakeside, the two landscape architects Ernst Baumann and Willi Neukom had the opportunity to plan their project on a flat and nearly continuous area.

Pavilions and exhibition halls were built along Seefeldstrasse, which leads out of town, whereas the area facing the lake was used for special gardens and entertainment.

By ascetic simplification of their shape, which is only confined to the essential, they can count on an immediate message and effect.” [1] The shrub garden, located between Blatterwiese and Zürichhorn, was considered a stylistic fore-runner of lakeside design.

[2] A letter, written by the architect, artist and earlier director of the school of arts, Hans Fischli, to Cramer said: “You create a sense of space that I have never experienced before in the open air.

You prove that a clever mind combined with the precise use of the trade does not have to apply the same technique for soil as the force of the natural elements do.

You do not create an imitation of a natural reality, but you fabricate a work which we abstract painters and sculptors have tried to attain through practical measures for many years.” [5] The breakthrough of new elements and materials in horticulture can be traced back to influences from the arts, architecture and design.

The ideas of the Swiss Work Federation (Schweizerischer Werkbund), to emphasize the functional form and to experiment with elements like concrete and fiber-cement, were adopted in commercial as well as artistic domains.

Art historian Willy Rotzler organized an open-air exhibition where abstract sculptures from Swiss artists, such as Max Bill and Walter Bodmer, were shown.

On the left lakeside, the pergola, the trick fountains in Belvoirpark, as well as parts of the hexagonal combs at Enge port were incorporated into the shoreline of Lake Zurich.