VERDICHTUNG ODER VERDRÄNGUNG?
When New Buildings Replace.
ZAZ Museum Bellerive, Zurich.

Verdichtung oder Verdrängung? addresses the social and spatial consequences of urban densification through the replacement of existing buildings. Rather than treating densification as an abstract planning concept, the project brings its material and human implications into direct visibility.

The installation is structured around a series of global and local case studies. A historical overview of international examples is placed alongside a close examination of ongoing demolitions in Zurich, based on field research and interviews. These parallel perspectives reveal densification as a layered process involving architecture, policy, and everyday life.

The project operates through a deliberate act of material displacement. Window frames recovered from a demolished building in Zurich are reused as spatial devices to frame the exhibited material. In doing so, demolition is not only documented but physically reintroduced into the exhibition space, turning absence and replacement into perceptible conditions.

All elements introduced for the project were conceived as temporary and reversible. After the exhibition, the furniture and display elements were auctioned, extending their material life beyond the museum and reinforcing the project’s critical position toward replacement, waste, and permanence.
By translating urban transformation into a spatial and material experience, the project exposes densification as a process that acts directly on buildings, spaces, and lives—making visible what is usually absorbed silently into the fabric of the city.

Expose — urban transformation is brought into visibility by translating demolition and replacement processes into spatial and material conditions.