Spaces Vol 1 Is 6

ARCHITECT ROBERT WEISE:
Text: Kai Weise
SWITZERLAND
Winterthur is an industrial city approximately 25 km
north of Zurich. In the pre-war days, the euphoria of
industrialization was slowly fading due to the harsh
working conditions and the economic depression. Grey
smoke belched out of the chimneystacks as masses
of workers wearing faded overalls swarmed into the
soot-covered brick cathedrals of assembly lines and
machines. Ship’s engines the size of triple storey
buildings were being manufactured to conquer the
oceans. However a new wave of reform was being
demanded by the trade unions, encouraged by the
socialists. The newly established industrial bourgeoisie
fought back heavy-handedly. Across the borders in
Germany and Italy, the turmoil and depravation fuelled
the establishment of a new order, the authoritarian
regimes of Hitler and Mussolini.
Under these circumstances, Robert Weise was born
on May 23 rd 1929 and grew up in a large household
together with eight aunts and uncles who all followed
the strict dictates of the grandmother. Being a single
child, he was pampered by the family and was
introduced to a wide range of activities: from
constructing gliders to assembling radios. Robert went
to primary and secondary school in Wulflingen. His
passions were art and sports. He joined the Boy Scouts,
where he participated enthusiastically and was given
the name Silver Fox.
By the time Robert was 10 years old, the
Second World War had begun. Step by step,
Europe was engulfed by the German army,
and as Mussolini joined forces and France
fell, Switzerland was left an island in the midst
THE LIFE THE WORK THE TIMES
§
PROFILE
“The foreign lands are not at all
foreign to me; for it is there that
I hope to be able to express the
personal freedom in me”.
of repression. For five long years, the country
was in a state of emergency. Food was rationed
and windows had to be blackened at night.
These were insecure times. Meanwhile, at
school, the art teacher did not give Robert
full marks in his final secondary school exams,
which set him on a new course. Instead of
becoming an artist like his friends, he followed
the advice of his art teacher and chose a more
technical profession; Architecture. Robert did
his apprenticeship as a mason and then joined
the architecture course at the Swiss Technical
Institute in Winterthur.
SPACES SEP-OCT 2005 71