Lecture of the Circle - Luigi Snozzi

The last lecture of this year by the Circle, which took place on November 8, 2005, in the Small Hall of the Trade Fair Palace, also concluded the series dedicated to Swiss architects and their work. For the finale, the Ticinese legend - Luigi Snozzi was invited, who immediately at the beginning of the lecture paid homage to Prague. It might seem like mere politeness. However, Snozzi is very sparing with praise, which he convinced us of in the following ninety minutes. He spared criticism for only two names, namely the Brazilian architects Paulo Mendes da Rocha and Oscar Niemeyer. Although Snozzi has many modern new buildings as well as sensitive realizations embedded in historical contexts in his portfolio, he showed the Czech audience five very bold (and therefore never realized) urban design projects, which were united by a single slogan that stated Architektur ist "Leere" - es liegt an dir, sie zu definieren (Architecture is emptiness - it is up to you how to conceive it). Admiration for the political regimes of South America at the end of the lecture was a clear proof that this 73-year-old leftist utopian has lost none of his enthusiasm when fighting against nonsensical demands and regulations from state authorities.
You will be able to revisit Snozzi's lecture, as well as those of all the remaining Swiss, in the second anthology of Kruh, the release of which is planned for the turn of this year.
For those who cannot wait, I recommend visiting the media archive of Zurich's ETH, where you can find a very similar lecture from October 2003.