In November 1975, an exhibition held in the second-year architecture studios at ETH caused an unexpected sensation. Tendenzen: Neuere Architektur im Tessin, curated by Martin Steinmann and designed by Tomas Boga, examined the recent projects of a group of mostly young architects from the Canton of Ticino. Reinstalled at EPFL in Lausanne only a few weeks later, and travelling to multiple other Swiss and European locations thereafter, Tendenzen is now known as one of the most influential architecture exhibitions of the 1970s. Fifty years after the original event, Tendenzen at 50: Portrait of an Exhibition, curated by Irina Davidovici and Frida Grahn, retraces its origins, impact, and afterlife. Drawing on archival materials, the majority of which are shown in public for the first time, it highlights not only the information that the exhibition conveyed, but also the hidden mechanisms it used for this communication, and crucially, the original materials it excluded.
Left: Poster for the 1975 exhibition Tendenzen: Neuere Architektur im Tessin.
Right: Floor plan of the exhibition at the Globusprovisorium, attributed to Thomas Boga
(image: gta Archive / ETH Zurich, bequest: gta Ausstellungen, 246-1-28-2-2-8; 246-1-28-2-2-4)
An Exhibition Strikes a Nerve
The 1975 exhibition presented projects by 21 architects from Ticino, many of whom later became household names such as Mario Botta, Aurelio Galfetti, Flora Ruchat-Roncati, Luigi Snozzi, and Livio Vacchini. It brought together their buildings realised in the 1960s and 1970s, focusing on schools, nurseries, and single-family houses, that embodied a design attitude grounded in the study of history, urban context, and typology. This attitude was related to a current of Italian postwar discourse known as “la tendenza”, first formulated by Ernesto Rogers in the 1940s and later developed by figures such as Aldo Rossi, Vittorio Gregotti, and Giorgio Grassi. Rossi had been a visiting professor at ETH between 1972 and 1974, and his highly influential studio was closely related to the design principles illustrated by the Tendenzen exhibition, which also featured the work of his ETH assistants Bruno Reichlin and Fabio Reinhart.
The immediate impact of Tendenzen can also be assessed through the circulation of its catalogue. Not only did the exhibition tour across Switzerland and Europe for the following ten years, but the exhibition catalogue, which reproduced all of the exhibition panels in A4 size, sold out in three consecutive editions between 1975 and 1977, and was reissued as a facsimile as late as 2010. By transforming the exhibition into a portable artefact that could be privately owned and used, the catalogue reached a wide international audience and played a crucial role in the global dissemination of Ticinese architecture.
Tendenzen catalogue, first edition, 1975, personal copy of the architect Max Bosshard, Lucerne (image: gta Archive / ETH Zurich)
The gta Archive as a Source
The gta Archive at ETH Zurich holds extensive material related to the making of the historic Tendenzen exhibition, including not only most of the original exhibition panels but also plans, posters, layout studies, maquettes, correspondence, and notes from the preparation of the catalogue, many of these previously unseen. Archival material forms the backbone of the new exhibition and allows, for the first time, a close look at the working conditions – not only behind the 1975 show and catalogue production, but also of the architects whose original drawings are now shown.
On the walls: original display panels from the 1975 Tendenzen exhibition with accompanying original drawings (shown in 1975 only in reproduced form); from left to right: Flora Ruchat, Casa Ruchat, Morbio Inferiore, 1966–67; Aurelio Galfetti, Casa Rotalinti, Bellinzona, 1960–61; Mario Botta, Casa Bianchi, Riva San Vitale, 1971–72. Tendenzen at 50: Portrait of an Exhibition, gta exhibitions, ETH Zurich, 2026 (photo: Nelly Rodriguez)
This material also allows a glimpse into the institutional workings behind the 1975 exhibition. At the time he curated the exhibition, Steinmann was a doctoral candidate researching a completely different topic: the history of CIAM (Congrès Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne), which was eventually published as a gta publication in 1979. Among other revealing documents, the minutes of gta Institute faculty meetings document the delays that the exhibition caused to Martin Steinmann’s doctoral research, and the concern of his supervisor, Professor Adolf Max Vogt, for the doctoral candidate’s workload and psychological well-being. Steinmann would go on to become one of the most active critics, disseminators, and intellectual guardians of Swiss architectural culture at the turn of the twenty-first century. Another section of the exhibition looks at the advertising, reception and aftermath of the exhibition. It focuses on publications in Switzerland and abroad, revealing the correspondence behind them as well as their wider effects in supporting architectural tourism in Ticino.
In the vitrine, from left to right: a portrait of Martin Steinmann in the mid-1970s, his PhD dissertation, a catalogue from the exhibition Aldo Rossi, John Hejduk (gta exhibitions, 1973), Aldo Rossi’s teaching materials from ETH Zurich, a copy of L’architettura della città (1966), and a group photograph from the XV Milan Triennale (1973). In the foreground: minutes from gta Institute meetings. Tendenzen at 50: Portrait of an Exhibition, gta exhibitions, ETH Zurich, 2026 (photo: Nelly Rodriguez)
An Exhibition About an Exhibition
Tendenzen at 50 is, at its core, an exhibition about an exhibition. At the centre stands a 1:4 scale model — a 16-metre-long reconstruction of the original exhibition, designed and built by Studio Christ & Gantenbein. Visitors can peer into the miniaturised show and view scaled-down A4 versions of the 1975 panels, for which the actual pages of a reused facsimile catalogue have been used. The reconstruction was made possible by film footage from Swiss television RSI, the only known visual record of the original exhibition space.
View of Tendenzen at 50: Portrait of an Exhibition with a 1:4 scale reconstruction model of the 1975 Tendenzen exhibition, by Studio Christ & Gantenbein. Tendenzen at 50: Portrait of an Exhibition, gta exhibitions, ETH Zurich, 2026 (photo: Nelly Rodriguez)
Looking up from the model to the walls, the original A0 display panels from 1975 are presented – for the first time – together with the Tendenzen architects’ original drawings. No original works were put on display in the 1975 exhibition. Drawings, sketches, and photographs were reduced and reformatted within a unified graphic template. This levelling enabled the analysis and comparison of projects at a more abstract level. However, the individual aura, materiality, colours, and distinctive hand traces of the original materials were lost. In retrospect, this approach can be understood to foreshadow today’s digital culture of image processing. This display of original and reproduction in two parallel horizons underscores the transformation – and flattening – of architectural representation as a precondition of its public dissemination. One striking example is the monumental series of 18 drawings of the Durisch House and Studio in Riva San Vitale by Giancarlo Durisch, publicly shown for the first time. The display of original drawings was made in collaboration with the archive of the Durisch family, Archivio del Moderno, Fondazione Archivi Architetti Ticinesi, and Mario Botta Architetti.
From left to right: original display panels from the 1975 Tendenzen exhibition, Giancarlo Durisch, Casa Durisch, Riva San Vitale, 1974–75; Durisch’s drawings of works by Paul Klee, Henry Moore, Roy Lichtenstein, Walter De Maria, Sol LeWitt, Alfred Jensen, axonometries, floor plans, and site plans, 1974–75; original display panel from the 1975 Tendenzen exhibition, Livio Vacchini, Aurelio Galfetti, secondary school in Losone, 1973; Livio Vacchini, Aurelio Galfetti, floor plan and sections of the secondary school in Losone, 1972–74. Tendenzen at 50: Portrait of an Exhibition, gta exhibitions, ETH Zurich, 2026 (photo: Nelly Rodriguez)
Original display panel from the 1975 Tendenzen exhibition, Giancarlo Durisch, Casa Durisch, Riva San Vitale, 1974–75, reference drawings and axonometric plans (image: gta Archive / ETH Zurich, bequest: gta Ausstellungen, 246-1-28-2-1-37)
A dedicated installation brings together 40 copies of the Tendenzen catalogue, assembled through an open call and borrowed from architects, historians, and libraries from Switzerland and abroad, including the gta Archive. Displayed side by side, the copies reveal varying degrees of patina, from mint condition to worn, sun-bleached, or even bound photocopies, suggesting different intensities of use and modes of storage. For many architects, the catalogue was a working tool, kept in offices as a kind of design manual, and remains a cherished object to this day. On the wall along the catalogue installation is a photographic essay by Stefano Graziani, documenting the interiors of selected Tendenzen buildings in their present state. Beside exterior photographs by Steinmann and Ronner, shown as loops in two monitors, Graziani offers a peek into the mostly secluded inside spaces of the iconic buildings.
View of the installation 40 Catalogues, 40 Stories.
Tendenzen at 50: Portrait of an Exhibition, gta exhibitions, ETH Zurich, 2026
(photo: Nelly Rodriguez)
Why Tendenzen Still Matters
Tendenzen did not simply introduce a group of architects; it articulated a transmittable design method that acquired an even wider relevance. The use of urban analysis, history, and context as bases for design broke with the high modernist ideal of the tabula rasa. It helped articulate a new direction at a moment when late functionalism was running out of steam. It became a catalyst for German-Swiss architecture in the 1980s and 1990s and shaped ETH teaching across generations. Many of the ideas that still define Swiss architecture today can be traced back to this exhibition and its catalogue. For the first time, Tendenzen is represented in a thorough and tangible way – an exhibition whose echoes are still audible.
Tendenzen at 50: Portrait of an Exhibition, curated by Irina Davidovici and Frida Grahn, is a collaboration between gta exhibitions and gta Archive. It is on view until 8 May 2026 at gta exhibitions, ETH Zurich.
Further Reading
Martin Steinmann and Thomas Boga (eds.), Tendenzen. Neuere Architektur im Tessin, ETH Zurich, 1975.
Irina Davidovici, The Autonomy of Theory: Ticino Architecture and Its Critical Reception, gta Verlag, 2024.