Occupation of the Wohlgroth area

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The occupation of the Wohlgroth area in Zurich was one of the largest squatting in the history of Switzerland . It lasted from May 1991 until the police evacuated on November 23, 1993. The five buildings in the area housed numerous social and cultural facilities that were accessible to the public, such as the “people's kitchen ”, emergency shelter , library and a cinema . Most recently, around 100 residents lived in the houses in the area.

history

Discontinuation of the Zurich Wohlgroth factory

After Wohlgroth AG closed the Zurich plant at Josefstrasse 35 in 1989, the entire property was given to a subsidiary of the Oerlikon-Bührle machine factory . Bührle planned a large office and residential complex on the property at Zurich main station. However, in addition to the then newly founded IG Kreis 5 , a representation of interests of the residents of the urban district, the city of Zurich itself was against redevelopment of the area due to the Housing Conservation Act, which is why it did not grant the demolition permit for the time being.

occupation

At Pentecost 1991, flyers with the inscription “Vage die Sau lümmelt” called for occupation of the area. About 50 people responded to this call and occupied the abandoned gas meter factory of Wohlgroth AG on the corner of Josefstrasse and Klingenstrasse in Zurich's industrial district .

The two and a half year occupation of the area began on May 18, 1991 . First the welded or bricked up windows of the factory halls and the two residential buildings were opened and the rooms cleaned and made habitable again. On the first evening there was a local kitchen and a concert, which attracted a lot of curious people. Due to the ongoing appeals proceedings against the demolition of the building, the occupiers could feel relatively safe from a quick evacuation.

Initially there were two residential buildings in which around 30 people lived until October 1992. Then the vacated house at Josefstrasse 31 was added and was connected to the rest of the area by means of a bridge. Josefstrasse 39 followed in December 1992 and in the early summer of 1993 the remaining four residential buildings (called: “Yussuf”, “Yussip”, “Yussif” and “Fleischkäse”) in the area were vacated and occupied. Most recently, over 100 people lived on the site.

Last months and eviction

On November 20, 1993 around 2000 sympathizers demonstrated in downtown Zurich for the preservation of the Wohlgroth.

In the summer of 1993 the legal proceedings were concluded. In order to reach the public, to put pressure on the city and Bührle and to draw attention to the fact that Zurich needs a cultural center like the Wohlgroth, the media group was re-established. The facades on Klingenstrasse and Josefstrasse were also redesigned and a photo gallery was opened.

The media reported in detail on the largest cast that had ever existed in Switzerland. During this time, the occupiers organized demonstrations, parades and actions in order to be present in the city and to draw attention to their situation.

City councilor Ursula Koch and Bührle director Hans Widmer rejected the offer to move to Seebach as unreasonable, as it was remote compared to Wohlgroth and had no accommodation. In addition, they did not want to give up two and a half years of work, art and design that were in the buildings of the Wohlgroth.

On November 23, 1993 the area was evacuated by the police without any major confrontations. It was not until the evening of the evacuation that there were serious riots by masked people in Zurich.

Actionism and design

On the Wohlgroth facade facing the railroad tracks there was graffiti in the official SBB station sign design, on which, in addition to the SBB logo, instead of “ZURICH” was written in capital letters “ZUREICH”. Something above it was a large graffito that read “Everything will be fine” . This saying, known due to its location at Zurich's main train station, served as the title of the 2003 Swiss film Alles wird gut . A photo of it also serves to show the film title.

Facilities on the area

Wohlgroth overview before evacuation, November 1993

Fixed interior, later info café, video room and sewing studio

Since a catastrophic situation prevailed in the Zurich drug scene at that time, a fixer room for drug addicts was initially set up on the premises, which was looked after around the clock . After the squatters closed it, the room became an information café . A video group (“Red Fox Underground”) later claimed the space before a sewing studio was finally set up there.

Emergency shelter, later a women's shelter

Women converted the smaller of the two houses into an experimental emergency sleeping place. But even this did not exist for very long due to the large amount of support required.

Bar and people's kitchen

The bar was the most important source of income on the area. Hundreds of guests were often present on weekends. The money that was earned at the bar flowed into the entire area and financed a wide variety of projects and facilities.

From the very first day there was a people's kitchen in which there was food for five francs every evening.

Movie and music rooms

The video group Red Fox Underground soon set up its own cinema, in which films were regularly shown that were brought by interested parties.

In the concert hall there were concerts on average three times a week, several hundred in total. Bands from overseas and all over Europe performed there. Many Zurich bands played their first appearances there. Directly below the concert hall was also the disco, in which, among other things, some of the first raves of the then new and still uncommercial techno movement took place.

For some, the music offered in the concert hall became too monotonous and thereupon founded the Jazzkeller . In the spring of 1993 a tango course was held there for the first time. Since then there has been a TangoBar with a tango course every Sunday evening.

other rooms

  • Läsothek: In one of the factory tracts , a laser library was set up right from the start, which within a very short time had more than 1,000 books brought along. You could borrow it or read it right there.
  • Movement space: especially skaters claimed this space for themselves
  • Quiet space for movement: Martial arts were practiced here

There were also various workshops, including one for bicycles. There was a billiard table and a table football table, a beer brewery (“Böhrlimaa” beer) and a few other rooms that were used for different purposes.

meaning

Due to its size and central location, the extensive industrial area quickly developed into an important scene meeting place and one of the most spectacular occupations in Swiss history. For the first time, it was possible to experiment with autonomy and collectivity on a larger scale. The coexistence in the Wohlgroth was characterized by an anarchist way of life, which was characterized by little wage work, a lot of free time and self-determination - undogmatic and without state supervision.

The Wohlgroth also stood for the retreat of the urban warfare movement on 'islands'; the struggles of the '68 movement for a different society and the '80s movement for the reconquest of the' whole city 'were a thing of the past. Squatting increasingly lost its protest function in the course of the 80s and 90s and became more and more an end in itself: people occupied in order to have a place to stay and to live there in a self-administered manner.

In addition to the living experiment, the Wohlgroth developed into an 'autonomous cultural workshop' (AKW), which is comparable in importance to the AJZ in the early 1980s. The cultural program consisted of much more than punk and hardcore music; it ranged from jazz concerts to art exhibitions. The term 'Kulturbrot' coined by Wohlgroth aptly sums up the cultural self-image: culture was seen as food for daily life. The commercial idea was secondary; rather, the focus was on innovation and the experimental.

literature

documentation

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Thomas Stahel: Where-Where-Wonige! Urban and housing policy movements in Zurich after 1968. Paranoia City Verlag, Zurich 2006, p. 106
  2. ↑ Michèle Schell: 25 years ago the Wohlgroth site in Zurich was cleared. A look back in pictures. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung from November 23, 2018.
  3. ↑ Video of the eviction on srf.ch
  4. ↑ Photo graffiti
  5. ↑ Thomas Stahel: Wo-Wo-Wonige. Urban and housing policy movements in Zurich after 1968 . S. 331 f .
  6. ↑ Documentation website