Fritz Haller. Architect and Scientist

A joint research undertaking of the Chair of Architecture Theory (KIT), the Chair for Architectural Theory Laurent Stalder (ETH) and the gta Archive (ETH)

Fritz Haller is considered one of the most influential Swiss architects and innovators of industrial construction in the 20th century. Born in 1924 in the region of Solothurn, he and other local architects—Alfons Barth, Franz Füeg, Max Schlup, and Hans Zaugg—became known outside Switzerland as the Solothurn School. Haller's oeuvre includes a wide spectrum of buildings and projects—schools, residences, office buildings, factories, digital planning tools. Moreover, the furniture system Haller developed together with the company USM—USM Haller—became one of the world's leading brands. Haller embodies the idea of an architectural production, one that moves impressively between the fields of art, technology, and science.

The estate of Fritz Haller was entrusted to the gta Archive at the ETH Zürich in January 2010. The research project encompasses the joint conception and implementation of a symposium (March 2012), a comprehensive publication with a complete annotated list of works (publication date: May 2014, gta Verlag) and the design and production of a touring exhibition, which will first open in May 2014 at the Swiss Architecture Museum (SAM) in Basel.