KISPI, wie wei­ter?

On Friday evening, an engaged audience gathered at the Ämtli für Städtebau at Werdmühleplatz in Zurich to discuss the possible future of a place that has long been part of the city’s collective memory: the former Kinderspital in Hottingen. The event, organized by ZAS* together with S AM Basel, opened with the screening of Abriss, a film produced for the exhibition Was war werden könnte: Experimente zwischen Denkmalpflege und Architektur at the Swiss Architecture Museum, which explores the fate of buildings from the 1960s and 1970s now facing demolition. 

The “Kispi” has been the subject of much debate in recent months, ever since the children’s hospital moved in 2024 to its new building by Herzog & de Meuron at the Balgrist, leaving behind 20,000 square meters of land and 30,000 square meters of buildings. Far from being ruins, the complex remains in excellent condition: the former Kinderspital in Zurich-Hottingen brings together significant constructions from different architectural periods, reflecting 150 years of hospital architecture and its continuous adaptation to the needs of each era, most notably the 1968 ward building designed by Rudolf and Peter Steiger. It represents a key example of Zurich’s modern hospital architecture, still adaptable to new uses. Yet the site is now threatened with demolition to make way for the new Zentrum für Zahnmedizin, a project estimated at 362 million Swiss francs and currently listed by the canton as “in Bearbeitung,” a costly plan that has already faced delays and may be pushed back further due to budget concerns.¹

While the cantonal parliament has recently rejected the idea of rezoning the site to build new housing², the Zürcher Arbeitsgruppe für Städtebau (ZAS*) has chosen to go against the grain. In its booklet Zukunft des ehemaligen Kinderspitals Zürich-Hottingen, addressed to the Zurich Cantonal Parliament, the Commission for Planning and Construction, and the residents of the canton, ZAS outlined a bold alternative: transforming the site into a Stadthotel Hottingen, following the example of the Stadthotel Triemli, where former staff housing towers of the Triemli hospital, once destined for demolition, were instead temporarily reused and became the subject of a speculative ideas competition.³ Their vision aims to test new models of urban living, addressing the housing shortage, demographic change and migration, while reusing the existing structures.

The discussion, animated by the film’s director Jens Franke, S AM curator Yuma Shinohara, professor Silke Langenberg and many other participants, quickly circled around a shared point: demolition cannot remain the automatic response to every new need. Langenberg underlined this with a sharp reminder: in Switzerland, only about 5 percent of the building stock is officially protected as cultural heritage, leaving the vast majority in a grey zone, vulnerable to market forces and political shortcuts. Demolition means wiping out vast amounts of embodied energy, irreplaceable materials and unique construction details. She ended by saying, with frustration, that we tear down buildings that are still usable, only to replace them with supposedly “sustainable” ones, an endless cycle biting its own tail.

It was precisely against this logic that ZAS* presented its booklet on the Kispi’s future. The document lays out, point by point, why demolition makes neither economic nor cultural sense. First, architectural responsibility: the Kispi could become a pilot case for tomorrow’s Baukultur, showing how functional postwar hospital architecture can be adapted to new needs without losing quality. Second, ecological logic: tearing it down would erase tons of embodied energy in a single act, contradicting every climate goal. Then comes the economic side: nearly 400 million francs for a new building, while the existing spaces remain sound and adaptable, is hardly a rational investment. Finally, among other relevant points, there is the urban perspective: opening the site would return a large void to the community, turning it into a public park and social hub. The “city hotel” concept envisions housing for vulnerable groups or essential workers such as nurses, combining residences, services and new forms of neighborhood life. Above all, the document insists on reversing the starting question: instead of searching for the best building to fit a predetermined program, we should look for the best program to fit the building we already have.

On this point, the consensus was striking. Everyone in the room stressed that the real challenge is not deciding which new function to impose from above, but changing our mindset: stop seeing existing buildings as a burden and start reading them as opportunities. Professor Silke Langenberg, while acknowledging this shift, warned that progress has been painfully slow: after years of working on the issue with limited results, she remains pessimistic. Perhaps, she suggested, it will take time and a new generation, what she called “sustainable natives”, to truly change course. Still, she admitted that in recent years more people have begun to take an interest. As Mariam Issoufou says in the documentary Abriss, we live in an “Age of disobedience,” and this age demands that we break the rules and dismantle old paradigms if we truly want to move forward.

Alongside these technical and political arguments, some voices added something else. Neighbors recalled children born in those wards, years spent in its spaces and surroundings, a microcosm that shaped entire generations. The emotionale Wert, the emotional value, doesn’t appear in any official report, but as was raised during the discussion, it may be just as decisive. After all, demolishing the Kispi would not only mean losing a well-built structure. It would mean erasing a piece of collective memory and that, in the end, could have an impact in the future far greater than what we can imagine.

For updates and information on upcoming events, visit the website: https://zas.life 

Notes

1. Canton of Zurich, Hochbauamt: Neubau Zentrum für Zahnmedizin Hottingen. zh.ch

2. “Altes Kispi-Areal: Nein zu Wohnsiedlung, ja zu Zwischennutzung”, Tages-Anzeiger, 24.02.2025. Link

3. ZAS*: Stadthotel Triemli project description. zas.life