Hybrid Systems
A Conversation with Roger Boltshauser

by Jonathan Sergison

JS: I don’t really want to structure this interview chronologically. I would rather discuss themes that I feel are pertinent to your work. Nevertheless, it would be interesting to hear about your background. How did you arrive at the door of architecture school?

RB: In fact, it was not always clear to me that I wanted to be an architect. I started painting at the age of fourteen, and for a long time I wanted to become an artist. When I was 21 years old, I decided to study architecture, which I understood as a foundation study, so a later path into art was still a valid option for me.

At the time, I was impressed by characters such as Joseph Beuys, Anselm Kiefer, and Bruce Nauman, important works and retrospectives of whom were on view at the Kunsthaus Zürich. I was particularly impressed by Beuys’ installations and his examination of materials. But I was also interested in the expressive works of the Swiss artist Martin Disler, as well as those of the Viennese artist Arnulf Rainer, who was making very exciting photo reworkings at the time. Rainer’s photo reworking technique kept me busy for a long time, and I developed it further for myself. The exciting thing about it was that I could always fall back on earlier stages of work and start over from there. Often, I used old paper or envelopes because I didn’t find a blank sheet inspiring. My work on reliefs, which came much later, is connected to it as well. They are based on real projects, which I then abstracted and worked on further.

To this day, my involvement with art continues to influence my way of working and my approach to architecture. During my architecture studies, I actually tried to get accepted by various art schools in Berlin, Vienna and Zurich, but then decided to continue my studies at the ETH Zurich. It was clear to me that the ETH was a great school, and I was impressed by the professors and the students’ work. I was especially drawn to the work of a new generation of Swiss architects: Peter Märkli, Herzog & de Meuron, Meili & Peter, Roger Diener and Peter Zumthor. Many of them were very fond of art or worked closely with artists at the time, which gave me a new approach to architecture.

I know drawing is very important to your practice as an architect. I also think about the pieces that you’ve made, the reliefs, and it feels like your relationship with art is really at the core of the position you have developed as an architect. What you’ve described, the way you arrived at architecture school with a sense of curiosity, is revealing. Then one semester followed another, and now you are here as a very established and significant architect in Switzerland. But let’s go back to when you were at ETH. Who was it that really helped you? Who were the important teachers?

I benefited more from the school as a whole and from the discourse on new positions that I saw around me, because although not all of them were represented at ETH, they already had an influence on the school. I studied with Meili & Peter and Hans Kollhoff, among others. What was important for me, of course, happened later, when I worked as an assistant to Peter Märkli, first at ETH and then at EPFL Lausanne.

In general, I was interested in seeing how the new generation was experimenting with materials. I was reminded once again of the Joseph Beuys’ work and his material investigations, the felt rooms he created, for example the installation 'Plight', which was also shown in 1993 at the Kunsthaus Zurich; a work that was enormously influenced by the immediate physical presence of the material. So unsurprisingly, I have found earth to be an expression in architecture. The archaic nature and authenticity of this material, which I am constantly occupied with, can be seen in Beuys’ work. I would say that the school and its surroundings helped me to find my way, but art was always in the background, and it led me to my own explorations.

Full Text available at El Croquis 209 Roger Boltshauser 2002 2021. Available in print and digital edition.